#I got the chance to work on wuxian which I'm very happy about

[s7ven-art]

AND HEY, YOU, DON'T YOU THINK IT'S KINDA CUTE THAT I DIED RIGHT INSIDE YOUR ARMS TONIGHT

[tanatola]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

Oh um! Thank you for the question, I do love that kind of thing, love writing it out... Honestly I think I can track almost a lot of my fav characters to just yaoi but whatever, I'm valid!! Also there might be some spoilers here since it's difficult to write 'why' without them. Sorry for long text, I like rambling about my favs. 1) Currently as is obvious it's Geto Suguru from JJK, I think he just combined a lot of the things I like in a way that really works for him and for the story... The inherent romance in being dead before the main plot even starts, ahh. Also the complexity behind his fall into villainy is sooo well-written, having so many reasons and chains of consequences that lead him to it, a slow and easily preventable descent into tragedy, it's so appealing... I truly believe he could have been saved and dissuaded at any point in his life, even during the events of jjk0, but people who cared about him didn't understand him, while people who did understand him didn't care enough (or actively planned to take advantage).

2) Kaeya from Genshin, similarly because he's a very contradictory character with a lot of inner demons and a tendency towards self-destructive behavior. Also back then the kaeluc of it all forced me deep into researching chinese terminology and similar examples in fiction which made playing Genshin a much more educational experience than one would expect lmao... Honestly I didn't love what the game did with him in the last few years, mostly ignoring the more serious and cunning aspects of his personality and story and focusing on the cute and insecure little trickster persona, it's very ehh to me. But in my heart I still love the version of him that made me obsess for over a year.

3) Jimmy McGill from Better Call Saul. Again, something about preventable tragedy and how difficult it is to tell where his actions can be traced back to his childhood and family relations, where he was forced and where he chose to make bad decisions himself, he is my poor meow meow 100%. Also has the benefit of being in a well-written show.

4) Princess Carolyn from Bojack, honestly it should have been Diane but Diane struck too close to home for me, while PC is a 'safer' to love option. Highly competent in professional areas, utterly delulu in others, one of the most caring characters in the cast... <З I also just liked her VA a lot, plus she's like a power fantasy in a lot of ways... Super great at her career, loving partner, realising her dream of having a baby, I mean yeah. Not that I want a baby, just that she got everything she wanted by the end, nice.

5) Wei Wuxian from MDZS, same with being dead before the story starts djkgdkjg, also a necromancer and a disaster, need I say more. I think for me a big factor of why I like him is that despite being a talented genius with a steady moral compass he absolutely failed at... everything? Lost everything he held dear or wanted to protect, when revived he doesn't even have any specific goals in the new life he was given. But his endless positivity means that he didn't mind taking that second chance anyway, and as a reward at least learned in detail why his first life fell apart, and also gained a devoted husband in the process, good for him. A rare happy end among things I like actually,, I mean I actually have words to say about the 'happy' part of it but well, as happy as it could have been for him.

6) Grantaire from Les Mis, this one is just very personal I think, a cynical drunk who never accomplished anything in his life, am I right dfjgnkdfg...,, Him being a typical asshole but well-educated and sentimental, loving Enjolras and all of his friends but giving 0 effort to actually supporting their cause, still managing to do the right thing in the end, it's ahh т_т Also I'm still obsessed with him mentioning studying under Antoine-Jean Gros in one sentence which led me down the rabbit hole of researching what real life Gros was like, spoilers he drowned himself in Seine after his artistic career went into decline. You can really see why looking at his works but that makes it all the more upsetting... Like not because of some 1 specific failure but just a lack of artistic progress overall, which his mentor, peers and students couldn't help but comment on... Anyway this isn't about Grantaire anymore but also kind of still is! 7) Vriska, I named my second cat after her!! Honestly one of the better written characters in Homestuck I think (im thinking the first five acts), just everything about her is perfect to me. A huge bitch of course, but at her core just a teenager with pure ambition and insecurities born from consequences of her actions, always trying to prove herself no matter how much she hurts people around her. And yeah like always with characters I like, so many opportunities for her to go off the doomed course, but either herself or manipulative adults always redirected her back, and that was always supposed to be the 'main' timeline, doomed by the narrative etc. The tragic nature of her friends-to-rivals-to-enemies with Terezi was also just sooo... And that Terezi didn't even care about that rivalry as much as Vriska did, or at least pretended that she didn't... Sighh....

8) Granny Weatherwax from Discworld, my favorite old woman. What's so great about her to me is that she's like all those other characters I like, an asshole who wants to solve everyone's problems, always tempted to react emotionally, do the wrong thing,... But she just doesn't, and she's been choosing to be good ever since she was young. The appeal of a powerful witch holding herself in check, mmm, she's just so much more introspective, complex and relatable than say Gandalf in LOTR who had the same issues. Iconic role model honestly.

9) Harry Du Bois from Disco Elysium, or at least specifically the communist well-natured version of him you can play as djkfgdfkfg, not that it erases his complexities and masculine asshole ways but... I mean yeah, he's a cop and an asshole no matter what, but the sheer potential he holds... No matter how low he's fallen, his sentimentality and his empathy, being so in-tune with people and the city, it all leads to a blooming hope for humanity I suppose. That you can get better, always, and not only a-la Grantaire by dying. Of course, you can also always get worse, too, but that's the other inevitable side of the coin (I still haven't played the fascist route since it makes me too sad).

10) Leo from Pandora Hearts! Again I didn't really love how he ended up, but ahhh :^) His unlikely friendship with Elliot, agreeing to becoming his servant to stay by his side more, not realising that he's dooming his friend by doing so, yandere-ish personality plus secret pretty eyes, I mean. Classic flavor.

[lansplaining]

Not to be too salty but how come LCX allows his beloved little brother to get brutally whipped (by a miracle not to death) but the prevailing fandom opinion is that it’s LWJ who isn’t really a good brother because… he has a life outside of LCX? Hmmmm!

man I have SO many questions about LXC's involvement in like.... all of that. He and Lan Qiren were there when Wangji attacked the elders, yet evidently he didn't hurt them! Which, like, good! But also-- probably really awkward in the moment!

I can't really speak for anyone but myself, and I resist the idea that it's as simple as good brother/bad brother, but I think it comes from the fact that Lan Xichen clearly sacrificed a lot to protect Lan Wangji in the immediate aftermath of Wei Wuxian's death. I tend to think that whipping is probably a step down from what his punishment could have been-- not to mention what might have happened if, say, the Nie or Jin clan had learned that Lan Wangji literally fought his own elders to try and protect the Yiling Patriarch. Somebody has to have been looking after A-Yuan when Lan Wangji was bedridden and incapacitated for three years, and somebody has to have supported the idea of bringing him into the clan as an inner family member, not just a sect disciple. Somebody has to have spoken on Wangji's behalf when he got drunk and broke into the clan treasury and branded himself. I think Lan Xichen was happy to do all of this for his brother, and I think he did as much as he possibly could given his position and the gravity of what Lan Wangji did. Maybe he has regrets about not being able to protect him more fully, but I for one can see why he couldn't.

But then, when we get to the end of canon and Lan Xichen is in a pretty explicitly parallel position to things Wangji has experienced at various points-- a person he cared for deeply his dead, he is directly complicit in his death, he doesn't know whether he's a bad person for even caring about this guy-- Wangji doesn't stay to offer parallel emotional support. He goes and elopes. (This is why I'm now inclined to read the CQL parting as partly about going back for the sake of Xichen, though there's no direct support for that.) I get why that makes fans of Xichen in particular really frustrated. He's alone and clearly extremely emotionally shattered, take a break from your boyfriend for five minutes and check in on him! In the novel, as I recall (I don't have the reference to hand, sorry), Wangji says something about how he doesn't think there's anything he can do for Xichen at this point, and that may very well be right-- but I still get why Xichen fans get annoyed that he doesn't even try.

There's a deeper thematic annoyance at work here, too, and one that I think is really deliberate. Wangxian get, essentially, a miracle. In the normal, single lifetime that most people get, their love story is a tragedy. But they get an impossible second chance, something absolutely no one else in the story gets. It feels so unfair that Lan Wangji gets to go off and just simply enjoy this incredible chance while everyone else is left picking through the rubble of the emotional devastation of the end of the story. I get why people feel frustrated by that and want to say that it makes him a bad friend or a bad brother or a selfish person. It isn't fair. It's an impossible miracle. There isn't any good reason they should get it and no one else should. But they do, and I agree that it's more complicated than saying he's a bad brother for getting swept up in it.

[robininthelabyrinth]

I am *endlessly* curious about how Wei Wuxian ended up at the Cloud Recess, and very satisfied my internal suspicion that the Lan and the Jiang were busy rebuilding their power/plotting a coup was right. Though I'm now curious about their reaction to 'Meng Yao is being kept around, and as Empress at that'.

spontaneous fic extra for Good Help - ao3 link

-

Good news! one of Nie Huaisang’s letters started, which was never good news. My brother has finally become gainfully employed! He will no longer be a burden on society, a good-for-nothing that does nothing but idle his days away, bringing shame upon our family name.

Wei Wuxian blinked down at the letter. “Jiang Cheng,” he said. “Did I manage to hit my head and wake up in a world where Nie Mingjue is not the Empress?”

“No,” Jiang Cheng said, looking bored. He was officially there on Jin sect business, though everyone politely pretended that he wasn’t very clearly there to see Wei Wuxian or, for those not in the know, sent by his husband, who had virtually no cutsleeve tendencies at all, to get him somewhere that wasn’t Lanling. It was an excuse they used rather a lot to get Jiang Cheng to where he needed to be. “He’s definitely still the Empress. Keep reading.”

Wei Wuxian kept reading.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he said a second later. “Someone mistook him for a guard? How?!”

“I mean, it’s not as ridiculous as you might think. No one’s seen him in years,” Jiang Cheng said, finally breaking his mask of boredom in favor of a grin. “He’s always behind all those veils – I’m pretty sure his fashion sense as Empress is ‘how much can I look like the curtain I’m trying to hide behind’.”

“But he’s so –” Wei Wuxian moved his hands around in an attempt to encompass very broad shoulders, a narrow waist, muscles, and also height. “Notable!”

“It’s been a while since you’ve been to court, hasn’t it? He’s always up on that platform far away from everyone else – you know how Wen Ruohan likes to look down on everyone – and everything around him has been resized for him; he looks more proportional that way. And if you didn’t know, and there’s no reason that this Meng Yao fellow would know…”

“Still!”

“No, really, it’s not that strange! You know how Wen Ruohan’s guards of the inner hall are dressed, all fancy Wen sect robes, and that’s all Nie Mingjue has other than his Empress get-up, which obviously isn’t appropriate for when he wants to go outside to train Baxia. He would’ve been wearing the right clothes and walking in the right place, and he is what you’d expect a guard to look like…if you bumped into him at random, as happened here, it’s a reasonable mistake to make.”

“He hired him as his secretary,” Wei Wuxian marveled. “Just – wow. Wow. Mingjue-xiong is going to break him in half, the first time he tries anything.”

“Maybe,” Jiang Cheng said. “Maybe not.”

-

Someone needs to go assassinate this Meng Yao person right away, Nie Huaisang’s next letter – nominally addressed to Lan Wangji this time – said. I think my brother might actually like him. A upstart Jin bastard that worked his way up through the Fire Palace – do you think all these years with Wen Ruohan has rotted da-ge’s sense of taste?

“He doesn’t actually mean that we should assassinate him,” Wei Wuxian told Lan Wangji, who nodded in agreement. “We still need the viceroy to remain in his place as the target. He’s just being dramatic.”

If Nie Huaisang actually wanted Wei Wuxian to assassinate someone, he had other ways of asking.

That was a fair portion of what Wei Wuxian did these days, actually, other than work on his ideas for demonic cultivation and warm Lan Wangji’s bed. Ironically enough, of the three, the last was his actual job: after Wen Chao had his golden core destroyed as punishment for having dared fight back when the Wen sect invaded the Lotus Pier – a temper tantrum at not being allowed to do the same to Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian suspected, since Wen Ruohan had even then already planned to sell the heirs of the Jiang sect to the highest bidder – Lan Wangji had, after quietly rescuing him at Jiang Cheng’s frantic instigation and with Nie Huaisang’s connivance, announced that he was keeping him as a personal pet.  

Wen Ruohan had been pressuring the Lan sect to adopt some vices, simply because he knew it would make them uncomfortable – Lan Qiren had been a particular target – and he’d been satisfied by the notion of one of Lan Qiren’s precious nephews, the Jades of Lan, deciding to keep a whore, even if he’d insisted on having Wei Wuxian inspected to make sure he’d been thoroughly used.

(Proving it had not been a hardship, not when Wei Wuxian had a lover as thorough and tireless as Lan Wangji. Joke’s on you, Wen Ruohan!)

Still, even as Wei Wuxian did (in his opinion) some of his best work on his back and puzzled his way through demonic cultivation as the only possible route for him now – Lan Qiren helped him with some of the musical cultivation bits, and also in arguing to the Lan sect elders that some type of cultivation was better than nothing, and anyway there was a limit to how much trouble he could cause while under close supervision – he had also started up a sideline in taking out their political enemies on account of being the one of them that people would least suspect. No one even remembered his name anymore!

“Maybe we should go to court and check him out,” Wei Wuxian added thoughtfully. “See what he’s like, make sure he’s not leading Nie Mingjue down the wrong path, that sort of thing.”

They could pass along some of Nie Huaisang’s messages, too.

There was that whole coup they were planning, even if it was far less interesting than Nie Mingjue actually making a friend for the first time in over a decade…

“Mm,” Lan Wangji agreed. “Wei Ying has good judgment.”

“I do! If he’s nice – though there’s no chance he’ll be nice, he’s from the Fire Palace – I’ll tell Nie Huaisang that I approve,” Wei Wuxian decided. “If he’s awful, I’ll send a ghost to haunt him until he can’t sleep. If he’s a little awful but seems salvageable, I’ll…I don’t know…I’ll set some dogs on him!”

Lan Wangji’s eyebrows went up.

“You’ll set some dogs on him!”

The eyebrows went down.

“Rude, Lan Zhan. Very rude.”

-

“So having now seen Meng Yao and my da-ge interact with my own two eyes, I’ve decided that they’re going to get married,” Nie Huaisang announced.

“Is that wise?” Wei Wuxian asked, even though he actually thought Meng Yao was pretty cool. He was so good at being nice to people that he disliked, so incredibly efficient, so thoughtful, and best of all only very rarely followed up on the occasional murder-eyes he liked to shoot people when he thought no one was looking; it had actually been the fact that he and Lan Wangji had both vouched for him that had convinced Nie Huaisang to change his plans to account for his brother’s preferences. “Making him the Empress? He’ll be bossing your brother around in no time.”

“He’s already bossing my brother around, and that’s the way my brother likes it,” Nie Huaisang said. “Making Meng Yao the mother of the Empire – above ten thousand, below one – is the ideal way to sate his hunger for power in a way that makes him feel confident that he won’t be so easily replaced the way a viceroy or prime minister would be, and therefore unlikely to betray us. Also, it will make Jin Guangshan have an aneurysm, and that will be hilarious.”

“I like that,” Jiang Cheng said. “Also, didn’t we agree that you were going to be the prime minister?”

“No,” Nie Huaisang said patiently. “You are going to be prime minster, and I’m going to be your empty-headed but pretty former Imperial Consort wife.”

“I’m pretty sure ‘former Imperial Consort’ isn’t usually a thing.”

“Yes, well, it’s a coup, we make the rules. It’d be such a shame not to use this nice bureaucracy that Wen Ruohan set up for us…Wei-xiong, what about you?”

“What about me? I’m very happy as Lan Zhan’s whore.”

Jiang Cheng tried to hit him, but Wei Wuxian dodged, cackling. “Maybe I’ll start spending his money on fancy clothing and living it up now that I’m his official mistress,” he said. “I have Wang Lingjiao’s example to look up to, don’t I..?”

“I would like to marry Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji opined, and Wei Wuxian suddenly felt all gooey inside.

“I meant what will we do with him in the government,” Nie Huaisang said, long-suffering. “You’re all useless – though not as useless as me, of course.”

Jiang Cheng pressed a kiss to his cheek. “No one’s as useless as you, my little good-for-nothing.”

“And don’t any of you forget it!” Nie Huasiang exclaimed, then elbowed Jiang Cheng in the ribs. “Don’t touch me, you married man. Get a proper divorce before you try making your way into my bed; what sort of girl do you think I am?”

“You can’t be serious!” Jiang Cheng spluttered. “Jin Zixuan is drawing up the papers right now –”

“I feel like I deserve a proper wedding, don’t you?” Nie Huaisang asked Wei Wuxian, who started laughing. “I didn’t get a proper one the last time around –”

“We’ve been sleeping together for years!”

“We were having a thrilling affair under the nose of an evil tyrannical dictator. Who’s to say that the spark’s still there?”

“Oh you want spark,” Jiang Cheng said. “I’ll give you spark –”

[curiosity-killed]

Hi....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? And why? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.

Aw of course I don’t mind! Though I feel like my answer is going to be a disaster bc I love these casts so so much aha let’s see:

✨ SPOILERS AHEAD ✨

MDZS/CQL

1. Wei Wuxian

Ah so I feel like this is obvious based on the sheer quantity of things I produce and the effort I put into hurting him 😅 but yeah! I love how much of a classical tragic hero he is and I love how much love he has and how that gets twisted around and shaped into a collar of spikes around his own neck. I saw gif sets of wwx before I ever knew about CQL and my reaction was “fuck. I’m going to love him” and I do! And I love that he does learn from his past and I love most of all that he learns to accept the love he is given and is able to make a happy ending in a place of being loved and held in respect and appreciation

2. Wen Qing

On the other hand, I did not expect to be like “mine now” with Wen Qing. Don’t get me wrong, the sexy immortal look got me but it wasn’t really till I started writing fic that I was like ohhhhh Oh Boy. Wen Qing is brilliant and ruthless, fiercely loving and aloof and cold. I love that she gets the lose-lose challenge of balancing what is right for her family vs what is right in the world, what she owes to her sect and what she owes to individuals. The golden core transfer is my favorite dubious science experiment in p much all media I’ve consumed. She gets to be so human—prickly and tough and also achingly gentle and afraid and putting on a tough face and sometimes still crying. “I’m sorry and thank you” ! Im!!

3. Jiang Yanli

The first fic I wrote for this fandom was literally “Jiang Yanli died no she didn’t” lmao I do feel like I underserve Jiang Yanli in that I often fall prey to using her to further the complexity that the male characters are permitted while denying her the chance to be given the same space for development and breath — something to work on! But in that, I really genuinely love how tightly she binds herself to her family and how she tries so hard to be what others need her to be—and then she does make a choice for herself and for a single moment at least, she gets to be loved and to be happy and to have this, a husband and a son and a place, for herself. And terribly I love how much she permeates the story still after death. She is the unspoken voice, the face turned from the camera but always still present, carried in the hearts and names and memories of the ones left behind

She deserved better but—I am weak for the tragedy of it all

4. Jiang Cheng

Another surprise (tho hardly surprising in hindsight): Jiang Cheng is just...horribly understandable. He makes terrible choices and his greatest heroism is undone by a choice made for him or, in the case of “killing the Yiling Laozu” is a lie. He is such a youngest sibling who doesn’t want to be the youngest until all at once, he’s the one in charge and he doesn’t want it at all. He is full of anger and hurt and so much love he doesn’t know what to do with it, doesn’t want it anymore, has no place to put all of its terrible, overwhelming flood.

5. Lan Wangji

I almost didn’t put Lan Wangji or Jiang Cheng on here and then I realized that this is sort of a list of characters I’m pickiest about in fic and...yeah. I think what I love best about Lan Wangji is his journey of grief and healing and through that, his decision to step into world. Where Wei Wuxian’s decision to travel and be removed from the cultivation world (in varying degrees depending on your headcanon preference lol) is really, really important to me, Lan Wangji’s decision to go from being an isolated lone agent working apart from the systems of the world to being involved and invested in changing those systems and working to make them better is also really important to me. I’ve talked before about how relatable Lan Wangji is to me (esp with regards to our interaction with the outer world) and there is something deeply hopeful and comforting about post-timeskip Lan Wangji being in his like mid-/late-30s and still making decisions and growing and changing and choosing to invest himself in the world and the future

yeah. i have thoughts here that I don’t really have the maturity, life experience, or articulation to put into words but Lan Zhan Good basically

TGCF

1. Xie Lian

suuuurpriiiiise!! Yeah honestly mxtx’s mains in TGCF and MDZS really just hit all my buttons basically. What appeals to me most of all about Xie Lian is, fittingly, how he is humanity taken to extremes. His capacity for incredible kindness and compassion is equaled with his capacity for cruelness and ruthlessness. His heaven-shaking highs are matched with calamitous lows. He is the hyperbolic of what it is to be human—and he is also the small moments, the wildflowers and the maple leaves and the mundane chores and the comfort of whispered conversations late into the night. I could quite literally go on for pages about what I love about Xie Lian but I am not Hua Cheng and can restrain myself LMAO

2. Hua Cheng

of all the characters on these lists, Hua Cheng is the one I’m pickiest about tbh! When I say I love him for similar reasons as Xie Lian I don’t actually mean this as being similarities between the two but the fact that both of them so richly convey mxtx’s points about the nature of humanity and what it is to be human. Hua Cheng is both the boldest and most arrogant of all and also the most vulnerable, the one who shies away from the truth because he’s braced for it to hurt and isn’t sure he can take it. He is gory blood rain and an umbrella to shelter a fragile bloom; he is a blade whose wounds only heal if he permits it and he is a sacrifice that he brushes aside as a fit of madness. *pats his head* this boy can fit SO MUCH inside him that he refuses to acknowledge

3. Jun Wu

Definitely my favorite antagonist in recent reading. I was doubtful of him from the start (something something issues with authority something something probably should talk to my theoretical future therapist shhh) but the unfolding of his reveal was so delightfully painful and exquisite that I was like “YES!!!” reading all of it. About the epitome of a satisfying plot twist imo. But about the character himself, I love how he parallels so many — Xie Lian in his rise and fall, his glory and disgrace; Hua Cheng in his fixation and ruthlessness; He Xuan in losing himself to the plot and not knowing how to move forward. I love that he feels beyond human in a way the others don’t—he’s so old and has gone through so much and he doesn’t feel things the way humans do anymore, doesn’t remember right how love squeezes the heart or how hate can exist without acting on it. I love that he thinks he knows how to control everyone and that it’s such mundane things that fool him: Xie Lian’s absurd stubbornness, Hua Cheng’s foolish faith, Yin Yu’s...emotional maturity??? Not Sure how to verbalize that one. But in the end, he is defeated by both the humanity of others and by his own—he’s so tired. He’s exhausted in a way that gods and ghosts aren’t meant to be. He is, under the armor and the masks, the curses and the power, human—benevolent and cruel, evil and good.

4. He Xuan

I love my fish man! No but really I love how He Xuan is so fixed on his one goal that he refuses to acknowledge anything else in his (after)life—which doesn’t make it go away. I love that he is left unmoored, purposeless through the very act of completing that which gives him purpose. I love his long con and the ways he clings to himself but loses himself not in the act but in the telling himself it’s an act. I love that he tries to be a moral man and then becomes a ghost king, a calamity. His reveal is also terribly badass and I do love his bone fish wholly unironically. Like I’m not going to get a He Xuan tattoo (for one thing I’ve been meaning to get a tattoo for 5 years and still haven’t gotten around to it) but also. B o n e f i s h

5. Mu Qing

Of course! The Jiang Cheng of tgcf lol Mu Qing (which my phone desperately wants to autocorrect to my Qing) is so...gah he’s such a mess! And he so fully commits to the belief that no one will ever see and understand him as he is but will always view them through their own convictions about him and his actions — which is simultaneously heartbreakingly lonely and also. Sir You Are a Clown. I genuinely think he’s owed apologies from both Feng Xin and Xie Lian for their treatment and assumptions of him and think that he would be HORRIBLY offended at the thought (while secretly touched? But like secretly even to himself). He will never explain himself and will just clam up tighter the more people accuse him and it’s such a self-sabotaging behavior and also so horribly relatable. I love u sir, you’re a disaster

SVSS I have not read but I do really like the moshang art 😂

[fixaidea]

OH I HOPED YOU WOULD DO THAT ONE. I would please like to know about "Cruise Trip", "ExF _East", and I'm torn between "witch wwx" (which I suspect is more Discworld??? ^_^) and "dumb villain" (because I always enjoy your dumb villain stories), so maybe both of those? ^_^

Cruise trip

This is a supernatural mystery, that takes place on a cruise ship. It stars one of my all-time favourite OCs, Dr. Ali Rana and his boyfriend Anton Szalóky (who just unexpectedly inherited a large sum of money).

Here’s the prologue:

The thing about stories, is that sometimes it’s hard to pin down when exactly they started. Take this very story, for example: it would be easy to say it started in a busy port in New Orleans, but it wouldn’t be quite true. You could also claim it started in a courtroom, and even though it would be somewhat closer to the truth, it still wouldn’t be quite correct.

No. If you wanted to get to the bottom of it, you’d find that, despite having seemingly nothing to do with them at all, this story started with an army of Soviet tanks in 1956. It started with a failed revolution and a man called András Szalóky who seized his chance and, using the general mayhem snuck out under the Iron Curtain and escaped to the United States to seek a better life.

He found it, at least in terms of material comfort, if not so much in domestic happiness. In that, he was quite unlucky, as he managed to marry into the most unpleasant of families – the kind that tends to serve as the backdrop and subject of some quirky private detective, as someone inevitably ends up poisoned for their money. Mr. Szalóky escaped this fate, but the older he got, the more bitter he grew towards his new relatives. By the time he turned 80 his resentment was right off the scale.

He took certain measures. He consulted a lauded psychiatric professor who officially confirmed that he was, indeed, in full possession of all his faculties. He hired the quirky private detective himself, but this time mostly to trawl through Facebook and check birth certificates.

The certificate confirming his sanity and an e-mail containing the name and address of the nephew twice removed he never knew he had arrived the same day.

Mr. Szalóky smiled. He signed his newly constructed will and testament.

His only regret was not getting to see the faces his family would make.

ExF_East

Probably disappointingly this one is the more-or-less publised ‘Enjolras, Feuilly and the Great Roadtrip of 1832′ which still needs and epilogue, and so is technically unfinished.

witch WWX

...Is the working title of the technically still ongoing ‘Of Hats and Flutes’. Here’s an excerpt from a possible future chapter:

‘Here’s the thing though, and this is something I learned the hard way’ said Wei Wuxian ‘Presentation and reputation are double edged swords. See, when they send someone after you people took to calling Light-bringer Lord, that’s pretty impressive, right? You know you’re in it right up to your eyeballs. But since you know it, you have your guards up. No such thing when you’re facing down someone nicknamed Sweeper. And so you may not have the time to realise that you are in much, much bigger trouble.’

 Once it was just the two of them left, Nanny added a hefty shot of brandy to her tea and nudged Granny.

‘Wonder which way he meant that little tirade. Did Lu Tze mop the floor with him, or was he just an example and he wanted to say he’s better off known as a lil’ village witch, and not for what he really is?’

Granny peered over the rim of her cup.

‘Both, I reckon.’

dumb villain

Answered! But here’s another excerpt:

Xie Lian was meditating on his own, among the ruins on Taicang Mountain. Ever since his amnesia incident, both him and Hua Cheng were trying to come up with a way that would allow him to keep his cultivation base while freely enjoying his marriage. Finally Xie Lian had some promising theories, though none were solid enough to put into practice yet. It was high time he worked out something though, because once again, he found himself with no spiritual power.

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

I was just wondering how you chose the couples for your edit! I'm curious about the reasoning behind where you put Guangyao/Xichen especially! And Xue Yang and Xingchen! And Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing! And all of them hahahahaha

lol, ok, I’ll go line by line!

But for mercy sake, I will put it below a “keep reading”, if you are on mobile it’s a 50/50 chance you don’t get the option and just have to scroll.

—There are those who seek me a lifetime but never we meet,

Jiang Cheng & Wen Qing

I decided to put them here because I thought the line about always seeking love fits JC really well. Wen Qing was his Almost, and he lives as a sort of widow after her death. He has kind of given up on his entire life in pursuit of hatred and wrath.  

This line feels very tragic, and it works for them. I won’t get into the context of the riddle within the story because it’d make my answer too long, but there is an element of the context and the fact that this is the opening line of the riddle kind of feeling like a dark parallel.

—and those I kiss but who  trample me beneath ungrateful feet.

Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao

How different would things have gone if Meng Yao- at any point, even after helping Xue Yang escape The Unclean Realm- just… stopped. Stopped with the power grabbing and swallowed his ambition? Xichen loved him- that finger stroke in Cloud Recess was enough to prove that to me. And I do think that, unlike Xue Yang, Meng Yao was capable of love once upon a time.

I knew, looking at the rest of the riddle and what I planned for each thing, I needed a full ship in this blank, but really it’s wholly directed at Meng Yao. His are the ‘ungrateful feet’. He was given a gift and chose a dark fate instead.

— At times I seem to favor the clever and the fair,

Mian-Mian and her family

If at any point I didn’t use the ship I used in any of these lines, the only other ones I could think of would be Meng Yao and Qin Su, Guangshan and his wife, or Wen Chao and his ho. None of those are anyone I particularly want to hold up in a positive light.

Mian-Mian was fair to Wuxian at every step, and she was fairly clever in how she managed Zixuan and kept his ego in check for him (without ever getting territorial over him, she was a bro to Yanli and I love her for it). Mian-Mian was a good bean, and didn’t really fit anywhere else.

— but I bless all those who are brave enough to dare.

Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli

This is one of only 2 that I went into this knowing exactly what line they belonged to. Zixuan was always kind of afraid of Yanli. She was consistent in her dealings with him, but for him to actually man-up and realize he loved her took some bravery.

Plus he did it when Wuxian was- as far as the other Cultivators are concerned- in Feral Kitten Mode. So to court/marry/father a child on Wuxian’s sister took a hell of a lot of daring.

— By large my ministrations are soft-handed and sweet,

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji

OK, so originally I was going to do this whole thing as a WangXian edit, then I realized the above line had to be Yanli and Zixuan and the below had to be Xue Yang and Xingchen, THEN I realized I’d have to add other couples so there is not a random Yanli and Zixuan/Xue Yang and Xingchen in the middle of a WangXian edit, and bit by bit they were whittled down to just one section.

In the original plan this would be Wuxian playing his non-Chenqing flute on the back of the donkey while Wangji led it, but I wanted a more powerful and peaceful scene. To me that is them watching the snowfall, which I also took as a sign of time passing.

IDK if there is anywhere in canon that really gets into it, but mentally I figured the “Present” arc covers about a year, including a winter spent in Cloud Recess. Just a soft and sweet break from the world on fire.

— but scorned, I become a difficult beast to defeat.

Xue Yang and Xingchen

This was the other one I knew had to be exactly where it ended up, which changed directions on the others.

Xue Yang and Xingchen are absolutely fascinating to me. Just– I could probably write an essay but I am containing it. What they had was in no way love from Xingchen’s perspective. Not just because he didn’t know it was Xue Yang- even if their history were erased, Xingchen always treated him as a friend.

Xue Yang the Rabid Cat though~~~ sociopaths cannot feel love, but they can get this sort of entitled possessiveness over something that looks like a sick, toxic, twisted kind of “love”. That “beast” just fits the line too well. Also the context of who is giving the riddle in the source text. Think Xue Yang but an all-powerful immortal queen who has enslaved a continent out of SPITE.

— For though each of my strokes lands a powerful blow

Jiang Fengmian and Madam Yu

My initial thought for this one was Guangyao and Xichen but I loathe GIFsets that are too literal (except my “I love you, I said and then I stabbed him” one with these two, I made the GIF for that one because it takes the quote less seriously and I giggled).

Honestly these are the winners of “I really don’t want Guangyao/Qin Su, Guangshan/Whats-her-face, or Wen Chao/Ho”. I had no one else coming to mind couple-wise and of the few passages I hadn’t chosen people for yet, this one… was left.

Originally in the idea of doing the entire riddle as WangXian, this was going to be the Umbrella Scene. Specifically Wangji stepping aside and Wuxian racing past.

— When I kill, I do it slow.

The Yunmeng Trio

The context of the original riddle really was focused on romantic love as something this villain was fixated on. The original plan (and indeed it is still in my notes so it literally changed halfway through me making that GIF) was to do Wuxian and Wangji here. A cross-cut of them young and happy and the cliff scene.

I really didn’t want 2 WangXian if the rest were mixed though. There were no more romantic couplings, so I tried to think of the same idea of a cross-cut between early days and late times. I was giving up and had a fade half-made that was Wuxian laughing (taking off the mask he tried to scare Wangji with when they were young) and Wuxian’s cry-laugh on the roof of the Nightless City. I accidentally clicked too far over in the episode timeline and saw him screaming because of Yanli and was like “Hum….”

There was a decent enough wide shot of the Yunmeng trio, in Episode 2 there is the fun jostling shot, and I figured if you had to summarize what led from Caiyi Town to the Nightless City in terms of their dynamics, no matter what way you look the answer is “love” (which was my mentality for the two Wuxian’s faded together- what love turned him into).

 Yanli’s love of her family, Wuxian losing everything in his life he loved, and Jiang Cheng raw and raging because of the loss of the woman he loved and the impending loss of the sister he loves.

And then I got some DM’s after the riddle was posted asking about the answer, so I chose to make the WangXian GIF and attach it as the answer :)