#I am still in MDZS hell

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Flower Empowered.

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[amynchan]

I posted 2,891 times in 2022

That's 98 more posts than 2021!

314 posts created (11%)

2,577 posts reblogged (89%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@mrevaunit42

@mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess

@chaotic-cheshire

@rainbowrider1290

@amynchan

I tagged 2,191 of my posts in 2022

Only 24% of my posts had no tags

#mdzs - 959 posts

#wei wuxian - 496 posts

#xd - 474 posts

#jiang cheng - 355 posts

#lan wangji - 309 posts

#x'd - 231 posts

#jin ling - 167 posts

#lan sizhui - 107 posts

#nie huaisang - 101 posts

#lan jingyi - 98 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#he plays chenqing and from beneath the wooden floors a corpse emerges screaming about how their spouse killed them for life insurance money

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

yk, I was p okay with going along with the interpretation that Lan Zhan chose 'Sizhui' because he was longing for Wei Wuxian, but what if it's something else? 'Sizhui,' according to the translations, means to remember and long for. The second half is what makes everyone go "Lan Zhan is just so in love with Wei Ying!" While that's true, the courtesy name should show what you want for the kid, right?

So, when Lan Zhan chose 'Lan Sizhui,' what if he was just saying "I want you to remember, eventually, where you came from and who protected you in this world"? He already remembers Wei Wuxian and the Wen remnants, and I wonder if it ever killed him that little A-Yuan had forgotten?

186 notes - Posted February 5, 2022

#4

See the full post

218 notes - Posted May 3, 2022

#3

Everyone's got a right to their own experience with characters.

Like, it's more than an opinion. People experience things when they're faced with characters that act a certain way. Characters are often exaggerated in order to help the story along, and stories are meant to affect people, so good characters affect people. Some of the effects are intentional, some of them aren't, and it's 100% okay that people have a different experience than you.

Like, when I was watching Encanto, I was so excited for Abuela to come talk to Mirabel. To me, that was a step towards healing. Abuela knew where Mirabel had gone and had actually gone to talk to her. Not only that, Abuela was being real and ate her own words of her own volition. That was amazing for me, who doesn't see that happen a whole lot and wishes to high heaven that it would happen more often, and I was thrilled. However, my siblings, who've had older people come to talk to them when they just wanna be left alone, immediately wanted Abuela to fall into a ditch. They wanted Mirabel to get angry and stand up for herself and defend her worth and her actions.

Neither of these interpretations are the wrong way to interact with Abuela because our difference didn't mean that we instantly hated each other. Instead, it was kinda fascinating to see where they were coming from because I'd never seen someone actively coming up to you and being straight up as a bad thing, and I hope they thought my POV was at least a little interesting. We didn't belittle each other or call each other names or accuse one another of being xyz because we interacted with a set of characteristics differently from one another.

Characters are characters. Good characters—not "moral" or "righteous" or "best," but "good"—make the audience feel things.

In Fruits Basket, Shigure makes me so infuriated because I met him when I was wrestling with this gray morality thing. I know several people who love him and his conniving little ways. The two reactions can—and, tbh, probably should—coexist in this world.

In Steven Universe, when Pearl and Amethyst fight, their division makes me hurt because I've been drawn to care about both characters. There were lots of people who took Pearl's side. There were lots of people who took Amethyst's. Both could be justifiable, and a lot of people got so invested. Pearl and Amethyst made the audience feel things, and that's kinda the point.

In Modao Zushi, Jiang Cheng is an incredibly divisive character (for good reason!), but he's a good character. Some people hate him and can back that up with the text and their own experiences. Some people love him and can back that up with the text and their own experiences. It's great! It kinda sucks to see an excess of an opposite opinion, but, like, they're allowed to have that. My experience doesn't make yours invalid, and your experience doesn't make mine invalid. They're just... different.

You're allowed to look at the same text, the same character, the same story, and feel different things from another person based on that text, character, and story. It's honestly part of the fun. And if you can't interact with people who hold that different opinion (for literally any reason ranging from "this is my chill spot and I'm not about to argue with somebody over something that doesn't matter" to "the opinion I hold is tied very closely to core aspects of my personality [trauma, strongly held beliefs, etc] and seeing its opposite physically and mentally unsettles me" to "stars. not today."), then that's fine. Block the tags. Ignore. Let it goooooo (had to).

They're characters. We love them, we hate them, they make us feel things, and we sometimes do some self-reflection using them as a guide (I find that this is where a lot of anger comes from? Maybe that's just me.). But we don't have to sit there and accuse someone else that they're xyz for hating/loving/not appreciating a character.

These are stories. These are characters. They may touch on our heartstrings and make our experiences and traumas feel validated, but they do the same thing in different ways for other people. And that's okay.

We can use that to learn about other people instead of immediately condemning them. If you don't want to engage with the other interpretations/experiences, then cool. If you wanna hate a character in peace, just make sure you've got the 'anti-' tag ready to go so people don't walk into your shop ready for something they ain't gonna get.

Just... yeah. Characters, experiences, and fandoms. We don't gotta be at each other's throats all the time.

252 notes - Posted May 14, 2022

#2

I know a lot of us go 'poor baby Mo Xuanyu' because of how shittily he was treated, but do we or do we all not just collectively gloss over the fact that he thought 'I am going to summon the most horrifying demon so he can slaughter my family and then I'm gonna let him loose on the entire world because I am so fucking done'?

Like, he was wrong, of course, but that was the goal, and I kinda wonder what other 'plots' he might have tried if the whole Yiling Patriarch thing hadn't worked out?

362 notes - Posted July 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I think a lot of us really want someone to have survived the burning of Lotus Pier, and I've seen some stories say that some survived because they were out of the pier for one reason or another, but something just hit me.

The Wens placed a restriction on night hunts before they attacked. All of the cultivators, including Jiang Cheng, the actual heir of YunmengJiang, were forced to stay in Lotus Pier. They were all bored out of their skulls when the invasion knocked upon their door because they were all forced to stay inside.

Everyone in Lotus Pier died except for Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian.

Because they were trapped there.

And the Wens knew because they orchestrated it.

For some reason, the massacre is one thing to me. It takes on a whole new layer when I realize that the Wen kept the cultivators there, waiting and ready to be slaughtered.

After everything, Jiang Cheng really was alone, wasn't he?

733 notes - Posted September 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[lavender-phoenix-flames]

If all Wens were actually evil, Jiang Cheng would have been dead.

[hellinglaozu]

oh no how could have this happened by popular demand?!?!?

[valdrift]

long time mdzs mutuals i have found old sketch ideas for a wx animatic to Agnes glass animals . postage to be determined .

[lgbtlunaverse]

Could someone tell me where the interpretation that, in book canon, the promotion Nie Mingjue gives Meng Yao made Meng Yao's life worse than it was before, came from?

I have seen that claim made multiple times now and I've looked at the text over and over trying to see where the basis for it is and I. Can't find it? Don't get me wrong, it absolutely spells out that it does not and cannot fix everything for Meng Yao, but the idea that it was actively bad for him?

Lacking other evidence, I kind of have to assume that it comes from cql canon being sort of projected backwards onto book canon. In cql canon, meng yao is suffering active and explicit bullying and abuse from the captain while under the nie, and does so because the capain believes he has risen above his station via nmj's promotion of him. (In book canon this... isn't happening. It happens with the captain in Langya instead) However, in cql canon he has also been with the nie for years and is openly close to both Nie Mingjue and Nie Huasiang, whereas in book canon he has only been working with nie mingjue for a few months (though has, in that time, apparently become close enough to him for Lan Xichen to explicitly state Meng Yao is able to calm nmj down in ways no one else can? Ofc he does this... Right after that stops being true. But. Food for thought. Not what this post is about tho.) So, if you project the much more explicit abuse from the nie sect captain in cql back on novel jgy who has a presumably much less stable position in the sect overall you get... a meng yao for whom the promotion only means a bigger target on his back and virtually no protection from nmj, who we must assume he can't trust to talk to his about because he never mentions it. (This also explicitly violates book canon when it comes to meng yao's general behaviour, we'll talk about that in a sec)

And look. We all do frankencanon in this house. I get it. And for fanfiction that is very fun. But for a serious reading of the character, his situation, and the actions that lead from that this... doesn't make much sense, in my opinion.

So. Why is that? Why did I say this was out of character for the novel? Because Meng yao spoke up about the jin captain mistreating him. Multiple times! It's just that none of it mattered because no one cared to listen to him. This is a pretty important line for his character because it flatly shows that meng yao is not and has never seen murder as something trivial. He's not trigger happy. He will only do it if he sees no other way out that doesn't end in himself being seriously harmed. (Whether he's right or justified in these cases is not the point of this post.)

If anything remotely similar was happening in the Nie sect, he would have said so. Cql Meng Yao doesn't do this because cql Meng Yao is a different character, and also the plot wouldn't work if he did. Cql Nie Mingjue, by extension, comes off as a fundamentally less trustworthy figure in cql Meng Yao's life because apparently for whatever reason, he cannot be trusted with the information that the deputy he has already publicly defended is still being harassed, and doesn't notice even when it is really blatant. The assumtpion the audience is given is that, like a middle schooler getting the principal involved when being bullied, it would only make the harassment more viscious.

This... actually has a somewhat solid basis in the book. Because after nmj yells at the bullies in question Wei Wuxian says this.

And it is important to keep in mind that this is Wei Wuxian saying this. Not Meng Yao, not an omniscient narrator. Wei wuxian is drawing on his own experiences, likely from the Jiang family, to conclude that if someone is angry at you and thwarted by someone defending you, this generally does not make them less angry at you.

This is leaving out two crucial things, though.

Firstly, this worry isn't about the promotion at all.

The promotion hasn't even been brought up. In the novel it doesn't ctually happen immediately, it takes another few battles where meng yao continues to do his job well and nie mingjue continues praising him for him to eventually go "yeah, you deserve a raise."

This is another aspect that is being projected from cql canon onto book canon I presume, because it does happen quite quickly there, and it's a throwaway line in the books so it's easy to miss. I can't be mad about anyone forgetting the difference, but it is important to mention for this particular analysis.

Which is the second point: change in status

Wei Wuxian couldn't exactly change status within the Jiang family. (And if he could, that would just fuel rumours that he was jfm's bastard even more and make madam yu even angrier at him, etc etc.)

This isn't comparable to Meng Yao. The worry Wei Wuxian is talking about is explitly about Nie Mingjue's initial very loud defense of him. Before he has any idea Nie Mingjue is going to promote him.

Promoting him would likely decrease his chances of cultivators coming after him because now he was in a higher standing in the sect than they were. If applied to that earlier metaphor of middle school bullying it's like if the bullied kid suddenly got hired as a teacher. Which. Doesn't work with the metaphor at all. Touché. But what I am trying to say is that any payback they would have planned for him relied on the fact that they could make sure that Nie Mingjue wasn't going to be within very convenient earshot a second time, and as a random disciple Meng Yao couldn't just go complain to him every time.

But as his right hand man? Who spends most of his time working directly alongside him? Lmao. Good luck. Oh, sure, it is very likely that they feel offended a son of a whore has been raised in status above them, and many will continue to do so as jgy rises through cultivation society (in fact, Wei Wuxian's observations are absolutely on point for how Madam Jin will be treating jgy later on). But as we can also see from the way jgy is treated and how he treats others throughout the story: you can be upset all you want, but if that person is higher than you in status there's jack shit you can do about it.

If I am correct and Wei Wuxian is basing this on his experiences with the Jiang family, it makes sense why he'd miss this. Madam Yu gets to be way angrier at Jiang Fengmian as his wife than some random disciples can be at Nie Mingjue. Insulting Meng Yao, suggesting that he didn't deserve his promotion or that he earned it through less than proper means (you know who is mother is) is also an insult to Nie Mingjue and the way he chooses to run his sect. They can't do that.

Another thing I see brought up in this regard would be the tea scene. There may be no explicit harassment like in the show, but cultivators still don't respect him! The disrespect is just quieter and more subtle.

Tiny detail: these are actually not Nie cultivators

They're cultivators Lan Xichen is escorting with him, making a pitstop in heijan.

The book confirms this by basically outright stating that this is the first time they see his face, and recognize him as Jin Guangshan's bastard son.

Now, just because there is no proof that it happened doesn't mean it definitely never happened. Mdzs is a novel that often leaves stuff out or up to interpretation. Similar stuff to the tea situtation could very well be happening in the background. But I do think it is pretty significant that there is no mention whatsoever of Meng Yao having any negative treatment from Nie cultivators betwen him and Nie Mingjue meeting and him executing them while spying for Wen Ruohan, and the most we get is Wei Wuxian's personal speculation, after which he immediately goes to wax poetic about how surprised he is that Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue are getting along super well.

And, again, novel Meng Yao would have said something. He doesn't say anything about the tea scene. - Or? Does he? Notably 3zun have some very long in depth conversations that Wei Wuxian zones out from because he's busy thinking about Lan Zhan again. But let's not rely on what-ifs. Let's say that neither he nor Lan Xichen find it worth bringing up. Major reasons for that would be that a) these are not nie cultivators, nie mingjue wouldn't really have the authority to scold them. Especially because b) it's such a subtle offense it could easily be handwaved as coincidence. "They just always brush their cups clean like that!! It's wartime you know, and they were traveling! They're used to drinking from vessels that aren't thoroughly washed everytime! It's just a habit!" And would therefore not be worth reporting.

But anything worse than that? A "price tens or hundreds of times greater" like wwx mentions? He'd report it! I do understand that "well if it was happening why didn't he say something?" would, in real life, be victim blaming. This is not real life, and I am not talking about this in a matter of blame. If Meng Yao was being mistreated in the Nie and stayed silent about it, it would still not be his fault. I am talking about this in a manner of character consistency.

His admission of seeking help in the Jin sect shows that at that time and prior to it (a very good argument can be made that he loses faith in this idea) he believes that if he is being mistreated and someone with the authority to say something about it takes his side, things can improve. If Nie Mingjue standing up for him in Qinghe only made things worse, he would not have tried to ask for help in an even more hostile environment. You can call Meng Yao many things, but naïve isn't one of them.

Meng yao's later habit of completely isolating himself and lying to everyone around him comes from the fact that revealing his suffering would mean explaining several horrible things he's become complicit in and he does not feel safe admitting to that. But he's done nothing wrong here!

The reading where he says nothing would imply an either correct or incorrect belief in Meng Yao's eyes that Nie Mingjue did not much care for his wellbeing or safety. Oh sure he defended him once but doing so again multiple times would be such a bother. This also contradicts his later behaviour, where he banks solely on Nie Mingjue's protective instincts to seal his qi and escape during the confrontation in Langya. After having been caught murdering a man, he is still convinced Nie Mingjue will immediately try to help him when he is in serious danger.

And even if you very badly want to characterize Nie Mingjue as a blundering idiot who is apparently less trustworthy in Meng Yao's eyes than the jin cultivators who had already resoundly rejected him by the time he tries to ask for help with the langya captain. He doesn't say anything to Xichen either! Lan Xichen, who has explicitly and exhaustively been portrayed as kind and understanding to Meng Yao's circumstances and very willing to talk to Mingjue if Meng Yao wants something from him he doesn't otherwise think he'd get. The conversation Mingjue overhears where Meng Yao's new position in the Nie is explictly brought up would be kind of the perfect time to go "yeah I've been promoted but I'm not treated well by other soldiers" aaaand. Nothing. So unless you come to the conclusion that Meng Yao trusted the Jin he told about the captain's abuse more than Lan Xichen you kind of have to conclude that Meng Yao's treatment after his promotion improved significantly. And that even if people still disliked him they could not openly do anything about it because he was high enough in status for that to be socially inappropiate. Which is, explicitly, one of his main motivators over the entire course of the story: Avoiding mistreatment by getting high enough on the social ladder it doesn't matter what people think of him, they can't hurt him.

And I'm not sure how to reconcile that character journey with the idea that he would, at any point, have preferred to keep his head down and stay where he was. When he was so desperate to crawl his way out.

[waitineedaname]

I finished the second season of heaven official's blessing! is good 👍

[labyrynth]

i may not check my follower count on a daily basis, but you know what i DO? my notifications. and my fucking EMAIL. and you know what hasn’t magically appeared in my inbox at any point within the last six months? some FOUR HUNDRED “new follower” emails.

tumblr. you are lying to me tumblr. there is NO WAY my follower count nearly tripled and i just HAPPENED to not notice. you are lying to me tumblr and i do not appreciate it. whatever you’re hiding, it’s time to come clean.

[factsilike]

Mdzs Fandom: JC suffered so much, he lost his entire family and sister and even his clan, surely his taking out his anger and resentment at others is totally misunderstood and reasonable, I relate to him so much 🥹

WN (who lost not only his sister and entire family and clan but also his literal life, and was held captive and experimented on for thirteen years as a trophy, watches his relatives die a second time, is treated with prejudice and disdain and fear by most of the cultivation world, yet despite all this still manages to retain a bone-deep kindness and humility, as well as a sense of righteousness as fierce as himself): Am I a joke to you?

This is what I meant when I said characters who are constantly declaring what they went through are put up on a pedestal for their non existent resilience. It's so easy to forget that other characters went through much of the same pain and handled their circumstances better, like WN who went through literal hell himself, because he barely mentions and even downplays his suffering.

[khattikeri]

prefacing this post by saying this is not a ship bashing post; i like all these ships; i am musing on my own personal preferences

i think the reason why i like wangxian and bingqiu just a little bit more than hualian boils down to the misunderstandings, with the sex scenes of their respective stories being insights into those misunderstandings.

in mdzs, lan wangji and wei wuxian's misunderstandings come about because 1) they were acquainted but not seriously close friends 2) they had to deal with a massive war and its aftermath. lan wangji was worried for wei wuxian's personal safety and had romantic feelings for him. wei wuxian was slowly led to believe over time that lan wangji didn't really like him much and wanted to harm him just like everyone else in spite of wei wuxian's righteous actions.

combined with their respective upbringings as a respectable second son and the dubiously accepted son of a servant who always has to watch his own back, there's a lot for them to untangle after the death and resurrection and feelings realization! but the moment they do realize that they're mutually in love, they jump on the chance to stay together, no more miscommunication, no waiting, no more turning away from each other again.

and the respective sex scene: you explicitly see the peerless illustrious hanguang-jun lan wangji straining, apologetic and still openly nervous during his and wei wuxian's first time. because they didn't talk things out! they were too excited! they were too happy and intent to have each other after all those years of pain so they rushed into it without really discussing anything beforehand. so lan wangji doesn't actually know if wei wuxian is going nooooo~ in a sexy way or if wei wuxian actually seriously wants lan wangji to stop. it's flawed and they work out each other's preferences later on, but they both enjoyed themselves and continue to do so even in future sex scenes.

in svsss, shen qingqiu and luo binghe's misunderstandings come about because 1) former is a modern day transmigrator compelled to not reveal anything about the story or what he actually feels for any of the characters 2) the latter is desperate to understand the former's contradictory actions and to not be abandoned.

combined with several miscommunications and hasty assumptions (e.x. luo binghe thinking that shen qingqiu must've harmed him because he despised luo binghe's half-demon ancestry; shen qingqiu thinking that luo binghe intends to torture him the way he tortured the original story's counterpart shen qingqiu) and you get a fascinating and heartrending dynamic where they clearly adore each other and are dismayed at the idea that it's inevitable for the other one to despise them and want to hurt them. things clear up because they show each other their devotion and intent to stay.

and the respective sex scene: their first time isn't even written to be titillating! they're still in the middle of battle. luo binghe's mind is being overpowered by the demonic sword xin mo, so even though shen qingqiu is okay with dual cultivation/sex to pacify the sword's lust for conquering, it's extremely rough and unpleasant. it is violent and painful and leaves shen shingqiu so battered he looks like he's been assaulted, which horrifies luo binghe when he finally regains his senses.

they're distraught as hell! it traumatizes them both! and yet in spite of that and in spite of their fears of being hurt they want to stay with each other and they actively choose to keep being with each other. they improve their communication and clearly seem to understand each other's quirks and sexual preferences better in the extras and after marriage.

versus in tgcf: xie lian and hua cheng got along with each other from day 1. there was a spark the moment xie lian met san lang on the back of that ox cart. they talked for ages and were endeared to each other basically immediately! even during the ghost bride mission where they didn't really speak to one another, xie lian clearly felt a connection to the mysterious groom who gently and safely led him through the blood rain.

through all their present-day adventures and the final battle, even when they separate by choice or by force of circumstance, hua cheng and xie lian don't ever have a serious falling out. hua cheng is loyal to the bone and xie lian is also deeply drawn to hua cheng; both their respective insecurities are treated seriously and with sincerity by the other. there may be some confusion about each other's feelings, but even that isn't twisted to the point that they completely misconstrue each other's intentions and characters.

there isn't a central misunderstanding or miscommunication between hualian the way wangxian or bingqiu had; just a mutual past to be unraveled, and the looming question of if xie lian will actually act upon his feelings/the fact that he's attracted to and in love with hua cheng.

and the respective sex scene: we don't have any explicit sex scenes due to censorship. everything is in xie lian's rather selective point of view (and he's the type who hides certain details from readers for entire volumes on end!) so the most we get is the skimmed summary: xie lian really enjoyed it and hua cheng is kind of rough. just the implication that hua cheng was naturally amazing and satisfied xie lian fully, without any particularly humanizing aspects or awkward/upsetting first time moments.

of course tgcf is a beautiful story and a lovely romance in its own right, but personally, i found mdzs and svsss's main pairings more compelling because of the misunderstandings and how the sex scenes tied into the characters' personalities and overall relationship arcs.

[weirdocat83]

A bit of a random thought but I am VERY VERY GLAD that not many people know what the hell SVSSS is.

TGCF? Angsty and maybe very gay but otherwise fine. MDZS? So much yearning but worth it! But be aware that the Bichen extra exists. Overall good series’ even if you don’t look too deeply. For both these series, someone normal could feasibly enter without any fandom knowledge and still have a good time or put it down before they reach fandom knowledge that can never be unseen. They both have manhwa, donghua and full novels in many languages and MDZS has The Untamed. Maybe some controversy arises but I don’t see a lot.

SVSSS? Legit the FIRST CHAPTERS are FULL of fandom culture and references to things that most people would shy away from. It is great for fans looking for something different from the same thing that makes fun of the genre while being sarcastic and somehow very thoughtful about everything that goes on. That being said, if it ever found its way to mainstream, it’d get cancelled so fast. People in fandom argue over characters while understanding the depth of them and the context they are a part of. Most people who are not obsessive fan-people tend not to do that. Like, yes I’d love a proper manhwa or donghua or even a live action for SVSSS but frankly I think there’s a good reason it doesn’t exist and that that fandom is novel only for the most part.

The friend who introduced me to danmei actually got into the fandom through the TGCF donghua. Not the novels. So imagine someone watching SVSSS no context. It would probably be a trainwreck.

But yeah, that’s just my thoughts on the matter.

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

MDZS AU in which Mo Xuanyu is a severely bullied queer kid but nobody is willing to help him in any way because his bullies are stinking rich, sponsors of the fancy rich kid school and also some are even his cousins.

He's at his wits' end and downright suicidal when he stumbles upon this page online about summoning demons and selling your soul to them in exchange for something (kind of like Death Girl)

Except you have to call onto specific demons or nobody will answer the summoning

So Mo Xuanyu goes onto a dark, caffeine-fueled rabbithole of mythology and demonology for a few days and nights until he finds the legend of the fearsome evil Yiling Patriarch

Dude sounds unhinged enough, the flute playing is a thing they have in common (even if MXY's shitty aunt pulled him out of his flute classes a while ago due to "financial issues") and apparently people rumor he was gay for some Lightbringer guy.

Perfect.

So Mo Xuanyu prepares the ritual and... nothing happens. He's so angry and disillusioned he's about to take his own life in frustration because not even this worked, nothing does, he'll be bullied and abused forever - but then, out of black smoke, finally emerges nome other than the scary Yiling Patriarch, only he's a bit... disheveled? And has a white ribbon around one of his hands??

"What is it, kid?"

"...y-y-you're the Yiling Patriarch...?!"

"In the flesh... err, kind of. Anyway, what do you want with me?"

"In a moment, but, um, why did it take you so long to show up??"

Mo Xuanyu swears the Yiling Patriarch turns red a little. "I was... busy! Underworld stuff, very important. So now care to tell me why you had to just pull me out of that super important stuff?"

"Iwantyoutokillmybullies!"

"Slower, kid, I am like 15 centuries old, my hearing isn't the best anymore."

"I want you to kill my bullies... i'll give you my soul in return!"

The Yiling Patriarch sighs softly and pats the kid's head. "Your soul is very precious, kid. Don't give it up just like that."

Mo Xuanyu screams, frustrated tears in his eyes. "I'm not! I've been bullied and abused all my life and I'm so tired of it! I want them all to pay! So take my soul and do it! That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it?!"

"You'll die in 10 years if I take your soul as payment. Do you really not think you'll want to live in 10 years?"

"No! There's nothing in this world for me! Everyone hates me and I hate everyone and everything in it! If you don't take my soul, I'll just kill myself anyway!"

"Hm..." and the Yiling Patriarch takes a few seconds to think. "... how about this? We make a deal but not for your soul. I'll help you with the bullies thing pro bono, no payment, and then I'll come see you in 10 years. If you still want to die, I'll take your soul. If not, consider my help just some random act of kindness."

"Why would a demon be kind??"

"I am not exactly a demon per se. Complicated stuff. Anyway, you in or not?"

"What the hell, let's do it!"

Next day, Mo Xuanyu's bullies wait for him in front of the school gates ready to taunt him and beat him up again.

Except he rolls up in a black Lambo with two super buff looking guys that he calls "uncle Wei Ying" and "uncle Lan Zhan" that see him off to class - before uncle Wei Ying puts a very friendly hand on one of the bullies' shoulders and only slightly lowers his sunglasses so his red eyes shine.

"I'm a really nice guy so I'll warn you. Once. Mess with Mo Xuanyu again and I'll make sure it's the last thing you do." And he smiles a fanged smile. "Or I'll let my husband turn you into a memory. He's very good with his sword and I mean that literally."

"H-H-Husband?!"

"What, any problem with that?"

"No sir you two are an amazing couple!!"

Mo Xuanyu's bullies not only leave him alone but also transfer schools to the other side of the country. Their donations to the school are now replaced with Mo Xuanyu's "uncles" support and so nobody is impacted.

And this is the story of how Mo Xuanyu was adopted by two demon king husbands.

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

I just finished watching through season 3 of the mdzs donghua fully and why do people praise cql for the romantic undertones when the donghua exists and did it much better

Hi there!

I am going to be completely honest here and say it's because a lot of them initially came from American live action media fandoms from 2005-2016 that very much thrived on mean spirited queer content baiting that the fans could transform.

Ironically I came across something from twitter today saying "fanfiction is taking back wonderful characters and worlds from problematic authors", and it made me sad. Because this is how the scape of American media is still like, the "subtext" of not really queer content is put on a pedestal because "I" can make what doesn't exist, better. It can be argued censorship was pushed to a certain limit, but it wasn't due to the writers and producer of CQL in the long run, it only is the bare shadow of the novel due to backlash and the film crew needing to resort to reshooting and edits of what had been a straight washing of the actual gay main characters.

The first season of the donghua, which preceded CQL by a whole year, can be debatably said to be able to get away with more risqué content due to the medium of animation, and tencent animation productions are very notorious with this and had the grace of being an old IP before the massive wave of mainland censorship restrictions regarding overly sexual content.

But the sticking point for me personally, is that even with censors the staff of the donghua hadn't tried to change the core relationship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji being the most important part of the others life as what the interviews for CQL's head scriptwriter tried to do when she said "it had to be changed to heavy familial ties" and thus the expansion of the Jiangs. It's morbidly word for word the same as a lot of American comi-con panels back in the day that the same fans hated from American productions.

It's taking the same crumbs from 15 years ago and trying to call it more. When the donghua did what CQL didn't by at least keeping Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian together and the others most important and not needing to explicitly say this or animate it by book text. As well as somehow needing to still say that the subtext is more romantic than the overt. Personally, I am tired of that when I have something in a televised form of my favorite romance that doesn't relegate them to the zone of platonic only zhiji who can never be together, and shows them on screen going to a home they made that they can go to when they want together always, and what others say doesn't matter.

I'm tired of taboo love and I think that the donghua understood the "to hell with that" message MXTX constantly made with each of her romances regarding that and what polite society would think about my love.

[savrenim]

whos ur mdzs blorbo (if u say anyone but jiang cheng youre wrong /JOKE)

not to be an Extremely Basic Bitch but Wei Wuxian. in my defense gotta LOVE me any character who is doing basic physics research and you cannot tell me that the development of demonic cultivation is not basic physics research in any given story I am going to be most obsessed with the character who is closest to doing theoretical physics in that setting bc most often nobody gives a fuck about the physics of their world in the main story even!! though!! it!! would!! be!! really!! cool!! magic!! physics!! that!! I!! want!! to!! know!! about!! and yes I understand the author set out to tell a story not to do fundamental physics but the physics of it will haunt me. I can and will kill on the hill that Wei Wuxian does magic physics and he does it Really Fucking Well and that is the thing I care most about in the world

but also

I am generally Bad At Cooking. I got better at cooking towards the end of grad school! but at the beginning of grad school I was actually cooking all my own food for the first time and was Bad At It and what's worse is that I was so tight on time that I'd almost always bulk cook for the whole week which meant that if I fucked up a recipe I had to eat it for lunch and dinner for like six days straight

until I discovered. the single best cooking hack. in the world.

you see, I like spicy. and I'm a vegetarian have been for forever and vegetarian bulk meals are like. "pasta and vegetables" "beans and rice and vegetables" etc etc. which and it turns out. that if you fuck up trying to make something. without altering the texture and having to redo anything bc it's totally possible to do it at the very end you can just dump an ungodly amount of red pepper flakes and/or cayenne pepper powder in and now it does not taste Bad, it simply tastes Spicy, and for me, that tastes Good

I proceeded to use this trick with everything. including when my coffee beans got really old and stale bc bought those in bulk too. simply throw red pepper flakes in to the ground beans before you drip brew it and now it's spicy coffee instead of stale coffee!

anyways I eventually became A Better Cook and Started To Make Food That Is Spicy But You Can Actually Like. Taste Other Flavors. miss Spicy Coffee tho, wish I had the time to brew my own coffee again.

fast forward to like. a month ago.

I discovered about a month ago lo and behold that I Do Slightly Better life-wise if I Actually Eat Breakfast before running out the door even though it's like 6:45am and I'm not that hungry. and I had a bunch of old fancy farmer's market granola from like two years ago that was about to expire so I started eating that with some greek yogurt. but it was a small bag and I was about to run out. so I bugged housemate-partner-who-is-a-good-cook-my-beloved of would he consider helping make me a shit-ton of homemade bulk granola, I'd grab the ingredients and we could figure it out as we went along

except the thing is he Hates cooking by Vibes instead of A Recipe it Stresses Him Out So Much bc he is not used to people with the attitude of "eh if I fuck around I find out that is the deal I make with the universe I'll still eat it" he is used to people with the attitude of "if it's fucked up I am physically incapable of eating this"

so I. jokingly. as he expressed some Worry about "do we REALLY need to cook this by Vibes? can we Please find a granola recipe??" went "hey don't worry!! if it comes out Absolutely Terrible we can just use my old trick from grad school of throwing enough cayenne pepper into it that it just takes Spicy instead of Bad!" the joke being that like. spicy granola in yogurt that is a CRIME hell spicy granola is a crime who ever heard of spicy granola

.............except I was. really curious.

so the next morning I tried sticking some red pepper flakes so the texture wouldn't be disgusting into my granola and yogurt, I am nothing if not a caricature of myself, I live by the primary tenet of "commit to the bit" there did not exist a world in which once I had set forth that bit I would not Commit to it.

and it was delicious????? like it was weird Spicy Surprise but it was delicious. No Bit I Just Legitimately Like Spicy Granola Apparently With Or Without Yogurt.

so I Decided that let's not even wait for us to Potentially Fuck Up The Granola Recipe let's just put 3/4ths of a full shaker of red pepper flakes into it for Funnsies. because that's a reasonable amount of red pepper flakes, right? there's a lot of granola I want to make sure that there's a hint of spice in every bite!

out came a gallon and a half of Crimes Granola. the red pepper flakes got into the coconut oil so every single bite of it is infused with a huge amount of spice it is FUCKING DELICIOUS and to absolutely every single person in my house who have Nowhere Near My Spice Tolerance even the one who Likes Reasonably Spicy Things it is Totally Inedible I make a three month supply of booby-trapped granola that I and I alone can eat

anyways.

like two days later I proceeded to have an existential crisis about the fact that I'd made granola that I was the only person I knew who would like it, except also, Wei Wuxian would probably like it.

so yeah he's my fave.

[margarrivergod]

I’m bored so i’m here to recommend some of the brain rotting fics i’ve read recently(all on ao3):

BSD:

A Dolls House by Abyss_In_Wonderland_likes_sexy_cannibals

Rating: M

Warnings: NA

Description: “Chuuya and Dazai get trapped inside of an ability made sigil. Now there's a creepy lady telling them that in order to get out they need to complete five tests. If they don’t pass they’ll just stay there forever or die, but no biggie, right?”

this is a high favorite of mine, the author does a PHENOMENAL job at characterizing the characters, plus the story is *chefs kiss*🤌🏼 i pray that they’ll write more skk fics in the future!!

the liars house by burgundytshirt

Rating: M

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Description: “Dazai, Chuuya, and four others are trapped in a cursed house where you cannot lie—each time you lie, you lose an organ. In seven stages, they are asked deeply personal questions that need to be answered in order to escape. Welcome to The Liar’s House.”

Dare I say this is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, skk fanfic?!? Like holy shit this is SO GOOD! This is a translation of the original, which is in mandarin, but it’s 12/10 regardless!!

TGCF:

Thank You For The Venom by xoTsundoku

Rating: E

Warnings: Underage, Graphic Depictions of Violence

Description: Mu Qing is guarded and hollow after losing his mother but he's content in his darkness until he moves in with the Fengs, and a light pierces his comfortable solitude in the form of his soon-to-be stepbrother. Two people who can never be together fall in love.

There’s a tag that’s reads “pseudo incest” and idkw but i found it to be the funniest shit lmaoo. But in all hknestly I REALLY like this fic. I still reading it currently but i’m bulldozing through it. I also believe the author does an amazing job at characterization while tying them into a modern au

Bad Intentions by bizzybee

Rating: E

Warnings: NA

Description: “Despite their hatred for each other, renowned cook Feng Xin and first-timer Mu Qing co-judge an amateur cooking show with a strong following on social media. As filming wraps up, Feng Xin is set to go on an international tour for the release of his debut cookbook. Their public relations coordinators team up to devise a plan that will not only jumpstart sales of Feng Xin’s book, but also boost Mu Qing’s rising fame and satiate the thirst of their shared fans: They will accompany each other on the book tour. Together. As a couple for the cameras. Whether they'll kill or kiss each other first is anybody’s guess.”

This is the first fengqing fic I’ve completed and it will forever hold my heart it’s SO GOOD! My emotionally cknstipated boys thrown into a cooking au!

if you can’t summon the flames directly from hell, store bought is fine by buthgoth (GremlinGirl)

Rating: E

Warnings: NA

Description: “Shi Qingxuan gets more than he bargained for when he steals a candlestick from a mysterious magic shop's private collection. A haunted apartment may be the least of his concerns, however. The demon he awakened is ancient and hungry, and it seems Shi Qingxuan might be his new obsession.”

Have I mentioned how obsessed I am with butchgoth’s work?… YES! this is the first fic of theirs that i’ve read and one of my faves. If your a beefleef stan then PLS read this fic plus their others!

as if by destiny by debwriting

Rating: M

Warnings: NA

Descriptions: “Hua Cheng stumbles upon the mysterious Midnight Cafe. He enters for a much-needed meal, and stays for the enigmatic owner, Xie Lian.”

A cute hualian coffee shop au with a twist!

MDZS:

Back to Bite One by diamond bruise

Rating: E

Warnings: NA

Description: “or, lwj, wwx and a couple of lan disciples get stuck in a haunted manor”

this one is cute and a tad angsty (like i wanna ram my head in the wall cause y’all r dense lol) but nothing too serious imo

RAWR! is I Love You in dinosaur by FireAwayy

Rating: E

Warnings: NA

Description: “Xue Yang has spent a life running only to find himself as an animal wrangler at Jurassic Park. He spends his time managing previously extinct monsters, and loving every second of it. Until Xiao Xingchen shows up.”

i love this author i love this fic i love this author i love this fic i love this author i love this fic!!!! if i couldn’t make that clear enough

Furry Porn Costs Extra by Fireaway

Rating: E

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Description: “Lan Xichen is the CEO of one of the richest companies in the world. He's efficent, savvy, and altogether bored. Lan Wangji is a ruthlessly efficient police officer with the highest moral code of anyone who had ever donned the uniform. Jiang Cheng is living day to day, getting by with his art. And when that doesn't work, robbing people blind. Wei Wuxian is the thief who hides behind a guileless smile and his uncanny ability to simply vanish when needed. What happens when their lives intertwine with one another? Will they find the answers they're looking for, or will they end up losing more than they ever bargained for?”

If i didn’t make it clear enough this author writes lovely fics! this is my fav Xicheng fic to date, it has its serious plot plus the humor is spot on (there is no actual furry porn)

Thicker Than Water by athena_crikey

Rating: M

Warnings: NA

Descriptions: “A disaster, is Lan Zhan’s first impression as the bike squeals to a halt on the far side of Song Lan’s car. The man riding it – and he’s tall, and lanky, and sure-footed – hops off and locks it to the car’s back door. The back door of a police vehicle. He pulls his helmet off to reveal long, sweat-soaked hair with a shaggy undercut, bright grey eyes, and a smile that launches like an arrow straight through Lan Zhan’s chest. No, he thinks, watching this trainwreck of a man shimmy between the narrow space dividing Song Lan’s back bumper and the next car’s hood like he’s doing some kind of dance step. Absolutely not.”

I absolutely ADORE athena crikey and her work- ALL OF IT!! this one in particular is one of my favs- here we have a modern cultivation au with my fav neurodivergent duo

Every River, Every Stream by athena_crikey

Rating: E

Warnings: NA

Description: “Wei Ying, rookie architect and chronically unable to prioritize his love life, in a moment of madness turns out to be tested for compatibility with famous new entertainer Lan Zhan, struggling with the after-effects of chemo. Unexpectedly matched with a man on a very different career trajectory, he's presented with a litany of unappealing choices. Oh, and also love.”

Another work by dear ole athena. This was the first fic I’ve read of hers and it will forever be a strong favorite.

Post Mortem by Cataclysmic_Calamity

Rating: E

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Descriptions: “Life is a horror movie sometimes. You ignore all the warning signs. You end up standing there in the final scene, covered in blood, contemplating your life choices. Wei Ying is used to that. But it’s harder when you’re in love with your best friend.”

If you guys are heavy into the tgcf or mdzs fandom than you’ll know exactly who this author, Evie, is. She wrote NPAB and The Soul Remains, along with a bunch of other beautiful fics. BUT MY GOD THIS ONE!!! I never see anyone talk about Post Mortem and I will proudly say this is my fav Wangxian fic, and one of my favorite fics period. The story is wonderful, characters r well written, beautifully paced, plot is to die for(lol). She’s an amazing author all in all so check her work out if you haven’t!!

[lgbtlunaverse]

Now this is meaner than i like to be when talking about fandom because i am pro people having fun and doing what they want and playing around with dynamics. So let me preface by saying that if you like this headcanon there's nothing wrong with you and I hope you have a great day. That said, aside from the Wen erasure and trying to flatten a more unconventional family dynamic into a nuclear family shaped hole one of the main reasons I vibe less with the "wangxian are a-yuan's dads" headcanon is that I honestly think it's kind of... Lan Wangji character assasination.

Yeah that sounds really harsh but the headcanon recquires Lan Wangji formally adopting a-yuan as his own and/or raising him as his son and i cannot stress this enough he would not do that. Because that would be actively endangering A-Yuan's safety.

To be clear: Lan wangji and wen yuan canonically look so alike that strangers who'd never met either of them assumed they were father and son. If Lan Wangji suddenly comes back with a child that he is insisting to raise, and that child looks exactly like him, people aren't going to assume that's hanguang-jun's adopted son. That is hanguang-jun's biological son with a mystery mother!

Jiang Fengmian didn't even formally adopt wei wuxian, and people knew who his actual (married!) parents were, and they still regularly assumed that he was secretly jiang fengmian's bastard instead of the child of the man cangse sanren literally eloped with.

If that's how eager people are about bastard rumours, what do you think happens if one of the most eligible bachelors in the jianghu turns up with an "adopted" son who looks just like him and refuses to say anything about where he came from?

Yeah, Hanguang-jun knocked someone up and apparantly the union was so scandalous he's deperately trying to cover it up while literally bringing this bastard kid into his own clan. Can you imagine a more juicy rumour? Everyone would want to know who this kid's mother is. A-Yuan's background would be one of the hottest pieces of gossip around.

Which, if you're triyng to make sure that no one finds out that this kid is actually a Wen and came straight from the burial mounds, is really fucking bad. If everyone is looking for A-Yuan's backround and someone succeeds, his life is in danger.

A-Yuan lost his memories, and that must've hurt like hell for Lan Wangji, both for A-Yuan's own sake and because that means this child that Wei Wuxian loved and who loved him in turn now no longer remembers him, will only ever know him from the lies the world tells about him. But he didn't do anything about it, because not knowing was safer for A-Yuan. Even if Lan Wangji wanted to personally adopt him, he would not risk A-Yuan's safety to satisfy his own feelings.

On the other hand, A-Yuan looking like Lan Wangji means he looks like a Lan, and wonky as the mdzs timeline is it's pretty clear he was born during the sunshot campaign. The Lan lost a lot of people in the war, they probably have loads of war orphans, and this kid clearly looks like one, they'd have no problem taking him in. Are they 100% sure who his parents were? No, but they probably died shortly after he was born and weren't able to safely return him to cloud recesses.

It's really easy for Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji to come up with a story from here. Someone came across the kid on the streets, saw the family resemblance, and decided to take him back to his home! After the burial mounds Wen Yuan probably wouldn't look too different form an average street rat. Or maybe the boy was raised by a common family who told them about the cultivators that left him there for safekeeping, unable to idenify them exactly but mentioning the signature white robes and forehead ribbon. Who knows!

The point is that Lan Wangji and Lan Sizhui could, for Sizhui's own safety, not be seen as father and son. From Sizhui's comments that Lan Wangji was "like a father or older brother" to him, and the fact that Lan Wangji chose his courtesy name we can infer that after he got out of seclusion Lan Wangji was more involved in his life than he would've been with other disciples. But from the outside that could be explained as a teacher having a favorite student, and an honoured sect elder (and family member, though now the assumption is "distant cousin/nephew" instead of "bastard child") helping to name a child in lieu of parents that are no longer there. By all accounts, Lan Yuan was raised collectively by the Lan as one of the several war orphans they must have had. Just like how he was raised collectively by the burial mound Wen before that.