#I want that jgy one so badly now

[a-yaos-little-murder-beans]

I dreamt about Nutella glasses with different MDZS characters on them which you can collect and I got the last with Jiggy on it at Aldi.

do y'all know how badly I want this to become reality now??????

[lgbtlunaverse]

It seems the dash has been talking about the Lan Xichen - Nie Huaisang post-canon dynamics and it's gotten me thinking about how discussion around post-canon Lan Xichen's absolutely horrendous mental state often center around the question of "who is Lan Xichen angry at and who does he feel guilty about" which, at its worst, seperates into 2 camps where according to one side he feels guilty about not protecting jgy and hates the Nies and, on the other side he has completely flipped on jgy and despises him now while being filled with regret towards both nmj and nhs.

And I dislike both of these takes not just because it often feels like people projecting their own Blorbo opinions onto Lan Xichen which is never a fun time but also because that central question is flawed to begin with. It treats anger and guilt like opposing emotions that can't coexist or, if they do, have to compete until one wins and cancels the other out.

And that's not how that... works.

To be clear, the reason why Lan Xichen is so supremely fucked up at the end of the story is that he believes on some level he fucked over everyone in this situation. And, even more importantly, that even with hindsight he can't actually think of what he should have done instead. Every attempt to do better by one seems to involve fucking over the others even more because these people were in conflict with each other and choosing one would mean standing against another

And none of this would actually stop him from feeling angry at any of them. It's not "who is he angry at and who does he feel guilty about" it's: "he is angry at everyone and feels an immediate and bone deep guilt for daring to think badly of them."

Speaking from personal experience here, but feeling like you're not allowed to be angry at someone because you wronged them really doesn't stop the feeling, it just maks you feel like shit for feeling it. And this is all worsened by the fact that what he's in seclusion for is, at the end of the day, a moral question of what he, Lan Xichen, did wrong and every single emotion serves as further proof of the ways he's failed them.

Is he angry at Jin Guangyao, for killing his oldest friend, using Lan xichen's trust in him to do it, and then lying to him about it and countless other things for a decade when Lan Xichen thought of him as the person he trusted the most in the entire world? Yeah. That's a thing people get angry about! Except Jin Guangyao also saved his life and protected and helped him more times than he can count and never ever hurt him and can Lan Xichen say the same? No. He had to clean A-Yao's blood off Shouyue, he has to be haunted by the fact that if he just hadn't listened to Huaisang- hadn't been just like everyone else, in the end, and believed a lie about Jin Guangyao just to think the worst of him- then Jin Guangyao might still be alive.

Is he angry at Huaisang? For orchestrating the death of his best friend? For making him do it? For knowing what the real cause behind Nie Mingjue's death was and never telling him until he found out in the absolute worst way? Absolutely. But didn't Huaisang hide it from him for a reason? Wasn't it his clan's techniques and his personal faith in Jin Guangyao that cost Huaisang his brother? How dare he demand that Huaisang let him in on the secret of his brother's murderer when Lan Xichen is here wondering about how he should have protected that murderer better!

And I do even think he's angry at Nie Mingjue, sometimes I think it's pretty normal to be angry at your friend for kicking your other friend down the stairs and threatening to kill him, even when you know his mind is being poisoned. And years later the last thing he ever saw of Nie Mingjue was Nie Mingjue's thoughtless corpse coming to kill him before Jin Guangyao pushed him away and then proceeded to graphocally snap Jin Guangyao's neck in front of him. And if what he wants to do is protect Jin Guangyao, shouldn't he be mad at Mingjue? Didn't this whole mess start because Jin Guangyao was afraid Nie Mingjue was going to kill him?

Except holy shit, can you imagine? Lan Xichen feels like he personally has Nie Mingjue's blood on his hands. Your oldest friend is killed in front of you and you happily believe it's an accident for 11 years and now you think you have the right to be mad at him? You watched him get worse as he was being poisoned and attributed it to his illness and not to the techniques stolen from your library with the token you give his murderer. Does he think Nie Mingjue knew who he was in that moment and wanted to kill him? That he blamed Lan Xichen for his death? (For the record, I don't. I don't agree with most of what Lan Xichen thinks about himself, but I've been in a self-blame spiral and I know how it feels)

But what was he supposed to do then? Choose Mingjue's side and let A-Yao die? That's also unacceptable. But so is letting Jin Guangyao get away with it. Every single outcome is unacceptable. And really, if Jin Guangyao felt like he had to kill Nie Mingjue to save himself, when it was Lan Xichen who was supposed to keep the peace between them, isn't that another mark of his failure? That he couldn't protect Jin Guangyao well enough that he felt he had to do something so horrible?

But that's not an answer! He's supposed to know what he should have done different, and all he can come up with is "what you were already doing, but without failing this time" He can't pick a side because that means betrayal, but he's already tried not picking a side and it ended like this! There is no right answer, which can only leave him with the idea that he was simply doomed to hurt the people he loved from the start. No wonder the guy looks like shit when we see him post-canon. They put him in a real life trolley problem and gave him the lever as a souvenir.

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

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1. hi! i"m looking for a fic where wwx wrote letters for all the important people in his life, barricaded himself in the cave to destroy the yin tiger seal. wq & wn arrived early and kept shouting at wwx to stop outside the barrier but he still continued and killed himself. a-yuan was escorted by song lan at jinlintai where a-yuan recognizes lwj and run to him. & then a-yuan saw the robes of jins he starts shouting & crying. then jzx and madam jin took of their robes. jgs & jgy crimes were exposed

FOUND? The deleted fic When I’m Gone by qiankun_pouch

seramarias said: I have a link for #1 via Google Drive if anyone needs it.

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2. Fic finder request, please!

A scene where NMJ picks up young LWJ and tosses him into the air like he would NHS as a fun thing that kids like. LXC is horrified and says that that’s a bad punishment or something, but later on LWJ asks to be tossed again—gently and is happy about it.

I just remember it being a cute short fic and now I can’t find it! 😭

FOUND! Of Few Words by nirejseki (G, 5k, LWJ & NMJ, LXC & NMJ, NHS & NMJ, Childhood Friends, First Meetings, grief and recovery, Making Friends, Pre-Canon)

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3. Hello, please I'm desperately searching for a fic where wwx finds out his favorite porn content creator is his co-worker lwj during a business trip? At some point he spent so much money tipping lwj that lwj offered a special set for him. I appreciate your work SO MUCH y'all are pillars of this fandom

FOUND! Damask / 锦上添花 by auberjing (E, 9k, WangXian, Modern AU, Lingerie, Sex Worker LWJ, Nude Modeling, Nude Photos, Porn with Feelings, Getting Together, Masturbation, Rimming, Overstimulation, Blow Jobs, Anal Fingering, Premature Ejaculation, LWJ in lingerie, WWX in lingerie, Mutual Pining, Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, Intercrural Sex)

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4. hi, I want to search the fanfic about the junior and maybe wwx and lwj travel back to qionqi path and stop by at banquet at jinlintai right after past wwx ask jin zixun about wen remnant. Also if I not mistaken, lwj cut tie with lqr. I read this at wattpad and not sure if the writer post this stories at other platform.

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5. was trying to find an omegaverse fic, where wwx was captured by wen chao, and traumatized to the point that whenever he went into heat, he'd go berserk and start hunting down alphas/wen soldiers to slaughter. lwj had been captured prior to him and was already halfway to feral, but the two of them ended up bonding without marking each other because lwj had been muzzled. anyone have a clue if this has been deleted or not? @ashewindrider

FOUND? The Faithful Demon of Yiling by TriviasFolly (M, 93k, wangxian, rape/non-con, JC POV, WWX is a Murder Baby, ABO, heat, The satisfaction of knowing how JGS's dick gets shot off, Omega WWX, Alpha LWJ, no cultivation au, Vaugely Historical AU, royal au, War AU, Slow Burn, WWX is a Baddass, Attempted Rape, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Character thinks another is dead for 75 precent of the story, Murder)

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6. Hello! I'm trying to find a fic, likely on ao3, where JYL was a reincarnation from Dongying/Japan, like a crossover between a period drama anime? I think she was still Yanli, but her previous spirit wanted so badly to have a family that the desire followed her to her next life, so she had paper white skin & maybe red eyes as a sign of haunting. I remember it was a well known anime but not one I knew, so I haven't been able to find it. She might've unlocked memories & found her reincarnated hubby

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7. Ficfinder request please! There's a "magic artifact fleshlight" that connects to an orifice of whoever's bloody gets on it. WWX overhears some Jin disciples plans to violate a woman using the artifact, and steals it and binds it to himself to protect her. LWJ catches him, and in order to protect her honour he lies, and says it's a simple toy, and that using it with one's friends is fun and totally something that LWJ should do. LWJ confiscates it and uses it, not knowing that it's connected to WWX. Shenanigans ensue

FOUND? The Golden Cutsleeve by syrus_jones (E, 77k, WangXian, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Crack, Humor, Aged-Up Character(s), WWX POV, WWX is a gremlin, Internally Screaming LWJ, No Sunshot Campaign, First Times, Accidental Sex, Masturbation, PWP, Porn with Feelings, WWX experimenting with things he shouldn’t like always, Happy Ending, Porn With Plot)

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8. Good day! Thank you all for your help/time/effort. Im here for fic finder. Im looking for the the fic where jgy had talisman that he sew to the other cultivators' clothes/robes—lwj, lxc, jwy, etc. Like he gave it as a gift, if im not mistaken. That talisman made them hate wwx so they said some hurtful words towards him. In result to that, wwx left and traveled alone. Then, I cant remember if its nhs who figure it out, but someone knew about the talisman then after that, they changed their wardrobes and started to look for wwx. If i remember it correctly, I found that fic via angst tag but since there's a lot of fic with that tag, I cant find it anymore. Thank you in advance! @httpskaixx

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9. Hello! I have been looking for a specifix wangxian tattoo artist fic on AO3 that I can't seem to find.

The details: Wei Ying is a tattoo artist who owns his own shop. Toddler Lan Yuan slips away from a babysitter and ends up at the tattoo shop which is how wangxian meet. Lan Zhan brings Yuan and Jingyi (Xichen's son if i remember right) to the shop repeatedly to see Wei Ying.

I swear the fic title is the name of the tattoo shop but my mind is blank. @abomimablesnwm

FOUND! 🧡 Yiling Salon: Hair, Nails and Piercing by TriviasFolly (T, 22k, WangXian, Modern AU, hairstylist AU, WWX owns a salon, Hairstylist WWX, 5+1 Things, Fluff, Experimental Style) Are you sure it was a tattoo parlor? Because all I can think of is this fic. if it's not this one, I'd think you'd like it, it's similar - Mod C

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10. do you know of an nsfw fic where lan zhan is trans and wei wuxian asks to see “down there” and they end up having sex and it ends with lan zhan saying theyre engaged ? If you don’t take nsfw asks feel free to ignore!

FOUND? gratified in each other by Anonymous (E, 4k, wangxian, modern, Trans Male Character, Trans WWX, Brief Pining While Fucking, Getting Together, Friends to Lovers, wangxian speedrun friends to fiances within the span of an afternoon like completely normal people, the inherent eroticism of agreeing to knock up the man you've been pining for for years, Porn with Feelings, there is in fact a plot here, Creampie, Daddy Kink, Penis In Vagina Sex, Cunnilingus, Squirting, Marriage Proposal, Smut, Fluff and Smut) Could it be Gratified in Each Other? It is WY who is trans. LZ tells WY, "if you can feel me, shouldn't i be able to feel you?" WY tells LZ, "Boyfriend is nice but… but maybe husband would be even better."

FOUND? A Different Kind of Courtship by pomelos (E, 2k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Teenage Wangxian, Boypussy, Just the Tip, Undernegotiated Kink, mentions of Arranged Marriage, Virginity Kink, Loss of Virginity, Bottom LWJ/Top WWX, PWP, Mildly Dubious Consent)

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11. For a future fic finder. I'm looking for a fic that was set in the Cloud Recesses study arc, it was a cracky sort of AU where Lan Qiren was being a matchmaker and pairing up all the kids. Sitting the ones he thought would go well together next to each other in class and things like that. I believe Nie Mingjue was also courting Lan Xichen by giving him sweets and Lan Qiren was hoping he'd hurry up and accept before he got chubby? Something along those lines. I swear I had it bookmarked but can't find it so I'm hoping it hasn't been deleted. Nie Huaisang also was involved a little bit but Lan Qiren didn't realize until the end. TIA!

FOUND! sentimental education by everythingispoetry (G, 5k, Everyone Lives au, Humor, Fluff, Matchmaking, LQR is a closet romantic, using teenagers as one's personal chess pieces, Crack)

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12. I have been looking for this fic forever and can't find it 😭. It was focused on lan yuan and wei wuxian, where lsz remembered wwx telling him about the narrow path when lan wangji left the burial mounds the first time. Lsz then worries that wwx is disappointed that he grew up lan like wwx warned against. I can't remember if lsz remembered everything about wwx or just that one memory. Plz help lol, it's stuck in my head but I can't find it 😭

FOUND? Would You Come Home? by s6115 (Not rated, 46k, WangXian, Junior Quartet Centric, Time Travel Fix-It, Canon Divergence, Junior Quartet Dynamics) LSZ finds talismans in WWX's old bedroom when he is invited to LP, and that way he can see different scenes of his life at BM, one of them being after the narrow path comment, when WWX tells him he can't have a ribbon, because that would mean be a Lan, who can't run, or laugh, or smile until his face hurts.

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13. Hi!! Can you help me find this fic? I've been reading this fic again and again before but unfortunately I didn't bookmarked it since I just kept the tab open but then I change my phone and now I cant find that fic! I'm just gonna tell specific parts I remembered 😅

So I forgot if wwx is alive here but lsz here is their real child in this fic and not adopted or whatever and so lsz is known as lwj's child but the cultivation world doesn't know how he looks like and then the gusu lan host a event where lsz would receive his courtesy name, family forehead ribbon, his own sword and music instrument and everyone in the cultivation world is invited, jyl and jzx is also alive here.

And here the jiang siblings or rather jc thought that lwj betrayed wwx since they kinda like know that they at least like each other? (Sorry this was really blurry in my memory 🥹 ) so they saw lsz and he resemble lwj so much but then they saw lsz and saw wwx in lsz, that is when they realized that the other parent is wwx. So they confronted lwj about this.

This is like the most memorable chap? Part? In the fic that I remembered 😅 I hope you can help me find this fic, it's one of my comfort fic🥹🥹 Thanks 😊 😊

FOUND! Until The End by abCEE (M, 365k, wangxian, canon divergence, communication, established relationship, sunshot campaign, mpreg, canon typical violence, WWX has new golden core, canonical character death, happy ending, fix-it of sorts)

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14. I'm looking for a fic that's a modern AU insofar as it's not in magical ancient China; it's set in the 1970s, I think, in China. Wei Ying is comatose, and Lan Zhan's been raising a-Yuan. He's basically been adopted into both the Jiang and Wen families as well. About halfway through the story, they're told that they have to remove Wei Ying from the machines keeping him alive (this is expected to be a death sentence). Lan Zhan collapses, but it turns out Wei Ying wakes up. @songscloset

FOUND! When You Wake, 怎能当梦一场 by MouSanRen (T, 40k, wangxian, modern, WWX is in a coma, Angst with a Happy Ending, Single Dad LWJ, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Parenthood, YZY's A+ Parenting,JFM's A+ parenting)

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15. Hello and thank you for all you do to this fandom, mods, you're so great.

I'm looking for two Very Explicit fics that I read AN ETERNITY ago (I think it was 2020?) and I really hope they still exist. I'm very sorry but the horny demon in my brain has been LOUD about them. They're both one shots.

A) genderbent A/B/O, omega wwx is married to someone else and has a son, alpha lwj keeps thirsting over her every time she goes for her run in the neighborhood? One day wwx invites her in and well. Sex ensues.

B) canon setting, hard BDSM, lwj has wwx tied up (suspended?), wwx goes into subspace and lwj makes him cum from eating his ass which apparently is not something he can manage to do usually.

15A)

FOUND? #15A seems to have been deleted from ao3 but it's "Young Sexy Dyke Rails Hot MILF From Next Door and Sucks Her Tits Dry!" by crimsonkestrel

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16. I'm looking for a story, I believe it was a multi-chapter, where WWX and LWJ keep trying to experiment with bondage, but it keeps going wrong. I know that the last time it went wrong, LWJ fell down a ravine and seriously injured his leg. It was also a modern AU, and they got married (or were in the process of getting married) at the end. Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

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17. Hi (＾▽＾) I need help to find some fics!

A) I don't remember all that much but, it is after the SSC and WWX becomes like the jiang sect's elder and I'm pretty sure it's a fix-it.

B) Wangxian is getting married and they are doing a ritual in the bedroom were they eat baozi I think and WWX's is raw and filed with lotus petals.

C) LWJ timetravels and is preparing to support WWX's resentful cultivation but because he changed things WWX never looses his core and don't have to invent resentful cultivation.

thank you in advance!

Hi (＾▽＾) I was no. 17 in the last fic finder and Like a Water-Worn Stone is right! so is Twelve Moons and a Fortnight! yay! thank you! but Resilience isn't the one, if it helps I'm pretty sure LWJ back like the CR lectures and I don't think JC time traveled.

but again thank you so much!

17A)

not FOUND Elder, an Aesthetic by MarbleGlove (G, 8k, JC & WWX, fix-it, post-sunshot) 1st of the series Rest is Revolution

FOUND! Like a Water-Worn Stone by meyari (T, 41k, WangXian, Hurt/Comfort, very little hurt, lots of comfort, Chronic Illness, Serious Injuries, Self-Medication, Disability, PTSD, Depression, Self-Worth Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, aftermath of war, Aftermath of Violence, Prisoner of War, Identity Issues, enslavement (discussion of), abuse (discussion of), actually very fluffy despite the warnings)

17B)

FOUND! Twelve Moons and a Fortnight by stiltonbasket (M, 290k, WangXian, Humor, Slow Burn, Post-Canon Fix-It, Long-Distance Relationship, Epistolary, Love Letters, Family Feels, a-qing lives, teenage romance, Adoption, Romantic Comedy, Happy Ending, Weddings, Case Fic, Parenthood, Politics) I just finished 12 Moons and a Fortnight and it had the baozi with raw lotus petals during the wedding night, so it's probably that

17C)

not FOUND💖 Resilience. by Vrishchika (T, 7k, WangXian, Time Travel, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, Not JC Friendly, Self-Indulgent)

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18. Thanks so much for all you do. I love finding interesting fics to read through this page. That said, this is my first request and I hope I'm doing it right.

I know this fic was part of a series. Everyone seems to be a little darker than cannon. This particular fic was WWX and LZ during the sunshot campaign.

LZ and the Lans he was leading were trapped/ambushed in a forest. NMJ could not spare the men to rescue them. WWX goes to rescue him anyway. Between him and LZ they kill all the Wen in that forest. I remember LZ feeling he was not the right person to lead/be responsible  for others in combat. He knew he was given the role solely on his status. 

I thought I bookmarked this but apparently not. I don't know if this series was complete or not. Thank you so much

As a consequence LZ and WY are darker in this fic.

FOUND? The Children's Crusade by natcat5 (M, 44k, JC & Yunmeng disciples, NHS & NMJ, JC & WWX, wangxian, JYL/JZX, Canon Divergence, Missing Scenes, Character Study, Sunshot Campaign, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Partial Golden Core Reveal, references to ableism, self-direct ableism, Self-Esteem Issues, Let Jiang Yanli be a little angry as a treat) the fic in question is part 3

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19. hi, im looking for a modern au where lwj makes lan qiren give wwx a written apology for driving him away? i think lwj had a-yuan and wwx believed he was a bad influence or something? anyway, it was a formal apology and lwj gives oy to a flabbergasted wwx when they reunite.

FOUND! say it's here where our pieces fall in place by Lirelyn (E, 68k, WangXian, Modern AU, Family Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Kid Fic, Adoption, Foster Care, Emotional Hurt/Comfort)

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20. good day! 🧡🧡 do u guys know the fic where lsz time traveled during the wens went to lotus pier like he saved the bloody wwx then called lwj and introduced himself as their son in the future. i remember that yuan left a letter and they put it in a frame (in their bedroom) at the end of the story. i bookmarked it but i cant find it on my list. thankyouuu!

FOUND? Son's Intervention by abCEE (T, 14k, WangXian, Time Travel, OOC, slightly (?), Dark LSZ, LSZ is LWJ and WWX's Child, Implied Mpreg, Fall of Lotus Pier, Revenge, No Golden Core Transfer, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, demonic array, Canon-Typical Violence, No Sunshot Campaign, No demonic cultivation, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Not Jiang Family Friendly, read beginning notes please, CQL Verse, Married WangXian Have Children, BAMF LSZ)

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[llycaons]

ep42 (1/3): jin ling just having the worst time of it

I don't think lwj genuinely hates anyone at this point in the story except maybe jc, but su she is definitely up there and is notable for being someone lwj has strong feelings about who is completely disconnected with wwx.

maybe contempt would be a better approximation of his feelings, but it's sure turned to hatred after the temple reveals

that's so freaky wtf. and now qin su will be in there too :(

one of the only mentions of wq postres ugh. and all wwx does is swallow and look to the side. it's not like he can publicly mourn her here

this was so fucking stupid ohhh im so mad on her behalf. it WOULD have been a more interesting and richer story had she lived lbr

he's very good, but also given the circumstances it's easy to be like 'what the fuck my dudes'

oh classic nhs fainting bit. I wonder why tho? was it to just make himself look vulnerable in front of jgy some more?

jin ling just watched his aunt stab herself and immediately die (those cursed blades, man) and his night is only going to get worse because he really likes wwx and he'll end this by stabbing him

YEAH they're intimate

aw yeah lwj sweeping in

their reactions to wwx unsheathing suibian are near comical here (not a bad thing)

aw :( he doesn't want to believe it

oh he is so funny. what a bitch

nhs wakes up to jgy and lwj pointing swords at each other and he OBVIOUSLY knows sjhdajhdks

jin ling desperately trying to make this not be the case

'extremely injured' do not start on this bullshit with me jgy I KNOW wwx wasn't just 'badly injured' for 16 years and mxy found his body and dragged it into his hovel and then gave up his body to heal him okay wwx was DEAD dead. weird translation

GET A JOB!!! KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF HER!!

oh he is so awful. this might appear to be sympathetic, but in fact it's patronizing. I do think jgy cares about jin ling, but I don't think he can turn it off. and he's clearly not hesitant about killing jl to further his own goals, so having him near jl when things are going to shit is really nerve-wracking

if you let your eyes blur a bit it looks like their holding hands

classic scene. lwj all 🥺 you REJECT lan zhan? you REJECT his love???

thank god I hate that mask

where's that post that's like *dramatic reveal* *cut to nhs who already knew it was wwx* *cut to jc who already knew it was wwx* *cut to lxc who

arguably it's a reaction to the reveal and not the info itself, but still

[thebiscuiteternal]

I gotta know, that one about NHS with de-aged JGY is fluff or knives or both :')

Both. Absolutely both. Huaisang is stuck in a mire of mixed parental feelings (he's just a kid, and a sweet one too) and the ever-lingering anger (it shouldn't matter! he still killed Da-ge!), and once now-Meng Yao-again starts putting his observed clues together and realizes his grown self must have done something *awful* to Huaisang, he starts wondering whether or not he even *wants* to be cured if it means going back to being the person who would hurt someone so nice to him that badly.

[veliseraptor]

Can you help me understand why Xue Yang never swears vengeance against JGY? Sorry for the dumb ask, Lise.....

not a dumb ask! this is an interesting one and part of why it's interesting is that there's several potential answers and no one definitive one, so it can be very "choose your own adventure" as far as what suits.

the most obvious explanation is that Jin Guangyao didn't actually try to have Xue Yang killed - that he loudly told everyone that Xue Yang Was Executed Now Actually, quietly pushed Xue Yang out the back door and told him not to come back, and an unrelated party caught up to Xue Yang and beat him to a pulp to be found by Xiao Xingchen. (or, alternately, the plan was for a little light beating to sell the bit but it got somewhat out of hand and more serious than intended/someone got overenthusiastic.)

this would make a lot of sense, including in terms of Jin Guangyao, who we know can be sort of sentimental about not killing people even when it would be technically safer/"smarter" to do so (notably, Sisi). it would also explain why Xue Yang doesn't seem super fussed about his unceremonious exit from Jinlintai and is happy enough to go back to working with Jin Guangyao and Su She after Xiao Xingchen dies - there wasn't a betrayal at all, and his ending up dying in a ditch wasn't Jin Guangyao's fault.

my personal favored explanation is a little more complicated because that's how I like it - which is to say that I tend to go with "Jin Guangyao did intend for Xue Yang to die, didn't feel great about it but it was necessary, Xue Yang fully expected that to happen eventually and wasn't even really surprised when it did." and then why he doesn't turn around and go after Jin Guangyao the way he does after others...a few reasons:

1. Initially: it'd be kind of stupid to try. Xue Yang is a fairly pragmatic person, really, and when it comes down to it Jin Guangyao is kind of out of his reach. He's well protected and even if Xue Yang could get to him then getting out again would be a pretty tall order. Xue Yang is dedicated to his vengeance plans (except when they get derailed by unexpected domestication) but he's also pretty practical about them.

2. It turns out okay for him, actually! Yeah, he lost his powerful protection and almost died but (a) that was always going to happen eventually and (b) he ended up with a pretty soft landing all things considered, and a pretty cushy set up in Yi City that he was happy with. So why throw himself at a very difficult vengeance target when ultimately things worked out all right? Not like Xue Yang wants to walk out on his domestic bliss elaborate vengeance scheme to target his ex-boss when he'd probably just die doing it.

3. When it stops turning out okay and Xiao Xingchen goes and unalives himself, Xue Yang wants something from Jin Guangyao (namely, help and resources for resurrecting his dead Daozhang) more badly than he wants revenge. That just takes priority, and again (in terms of pragmatism), Xue Yang can prioritize.

4. On some weird level Xue Yang still likes Jin Guangyao. Trusts, no, likes, yes. Yes, he screwed him over! (Not very surprising: that's just what everyone does.) But he was/is also a friend (one of Xue Yang's first and only) and that means he gets a fair bit more latitude, I think, than anybody else. Because Xue Yang is very loyal, in his way. So if there's enough reasons to make the decision that this once he will let that whole thing go...I can see him doing that, very graciously and magnanimously. He's so nice like that.

[chengxians]

i’m going insane about how much i love the lotus brothers’ dynamic so now you will all listen to me. spoiler heavy so be weary

this part in ch 104 just fuckin KILLS me:

like??? to think that with no outside interference, jc & wwx’s relationship might not have gone to ruin like it did. jgy straight up ADMITS that it probably wouldn’t have, had he not meddled.

and!!! this bit from earlier!!!

jc asked jyl to let wwx name their nephew AFTER defecting. after leaving the family as rudely as he could, jc still stood there with open arms to welcome him back. right before this, they were joking and laughing at each other, complaining that jc’s injury was much more significant than the one he gave wwx. jiang cheng doesn’t hate him, exactly, and he’s still trying to figure it out at this point.

then, here:

HERE, wwx finally gets it. he sees a bridge back to jiang cheng, finally gets a glimpse of what boils under jc’s skin. wwx knows, and dare i say he sympathizes. if he gets the chance, he’ll be able to fucking talk to his once best friend.

and then as we get to the finale???

jiang cheng lets his fucking soul out. he so, SO badly wants his best friend back, he’s feeling beyond fucking betrayed at this point. he’s floundering in shallow water, waiting for wei wuxian to be the hand that pulls him back up.

ok this post is so long my phone is lagging now but. LAST ONE:

jin guangyao destroyed their bond so severely that jc doesn’t even know where to start, or where to end. he’s hoping for a chance, for fucking anything, but clearly hope has been a four-letter word for him and all he can do is raise his nephew. if a chance came, he probably wouldn’t take it out of fear, of guilt, of self-loathing. or, maybe he would, and maybe he’d start to piece himself back together with two sets of family hands to help him.

this post is clearly not coherent bc it’s almost midnight but im just. so fucking enamored by jiang cheng as a whole and his relationship with wei wuxian in any form. hes just so precious to me

[stiltonbasket]

how does lqr deal with the jgy problem?

(author’s note: please reblog, since that’s how we get prompts for future ficlets!)

When one of Wang Sisi’s clients decided to take her on as a concubine, she was not quite as overjoyed as another woman might have been in her position.

Sisi is thirty-two years old, and she entered the Yunping brothel when she was barely twenty. In the twelve years since, she has heard all kinds of broken promises and witnessed innumerable cruelties, and she knows enough about the life of a minor wife to know that she doesn’t have it too badly in comparison. Sisi has never caught the wasting illnesses that make their rounds in brothels often, or had to entertain a violent client, and she has never had a child; but after entering Merchant Yao’s household, any one of those things might end up happening to her.

Yao-daren would keep frequenting brothels, and unlike when she was a prostitute, she wouldn’t be able to refuse him. She would have no way to defend herself if he beat her, and if he ever discovered the tinctures she drinks to prevent pregnancy, he would have every right to take them from her.

Those miserable truths accompanied her all the way down the alley she was dragged into five minutes ago, and echoed in her head like drumbeats as the thugs blocking her escape—hired by Yao-daren’s wife, no doubt—announced their intention to beat her to a pulp.

Merchant Yao will have nothing to do with me after this, she thinks, as the men raise their wooden clubs over her head.

And then, briefly: Good.

Sisi closes her eyes, having clawed and fought and struggled against them to the very last of her strength. But then someone’s hand is on her arm, yanking her up out of the mud as four still figures drop neatly to the ground by her feet, unconscious. One is bleeding from a deep wound to the shoulder, and Sisi snatches her toes back before the blood can stain her silk slippers.

She stares.

What in the world…?

“Gongzi?” she asks, as the—boy? man? who saved her wipes his sword and resheathes it. “What are you—”

“Fiends,” the white-clad cultivator sneers. “No matter, I’ll deal with them later. Lady, where were you going? I will escort you there, if that would not inconvenience you.”

“I was going to the cosmetics shop two streets away,” Sisi answers. Madam Yun's emporium is in full view of Yunping’s main square, which means that she will be relatively safe even if this bloodthirsty cultivator tries anything on the way. “After I finish my business there, I will be returning home.”

The cultivator frowns, staring deep into her eyes as if he recognized her from somewhere. But Sisi has known hundreds of handsome men in her day, and this one is far too gorgeous to forget, even if she had only seen him in passing.

“Where is home, guniang?”

“Guniang? Can’t you see how old I am?” Sisi says tartly. “I live at the Chrysanthemum House in the middle of town, xiao-gongzi. Now, either see me to the rouge shop or go away.”

“Chrysanthemum House, eh?” the cultivator grumbles. “It’s just as I thought. Your lover’s wife sent those thugs to scar your face, didn’t she?”

“I guess so. It happens often, when a man decides he wants another woman in his house.”

“Mm. By any chance, would you happen to know a lady called Meng Shi?”

“A-Shi?” Sisi looks over the man's rich robes and the mutton-fat yaopei hanging from his waist; she can gauge the quality of most jade pieces at a glance, and this yaopei is made of the finest jade Sisi has ever seen. The cultivator is even wearing white jade in his hair, set into a bright silver comb that glints under the afternoon sun like a mirror, and her spirits sink even further as she realizes who this man must be.

A-Shi always said her A-Yao's father was a wealthy cultivator, and it seems that she hadn't been taken for a fool after all.

"You've come to buy A-Shi's freedom, then?" she demands, trying not to sound too grim about it. "Meng Shi? You're sure?"

"En, Meng Shi. If her son is bound here as a servant, I will buy his freedom as well. Will you show me the way, Lady?"

Sisi does, with her heart in her mouth, praying to every god she knows to keep Meng Shi safe.

____

“I want to buy this woman's freedom," Lan Qiren declared, the moment Sisi led him to the Chrysanthemum House. "Where are the contracts for Meng Shi and Madam Sisi? If anyone else has offered to buy them out, I will match the price tenfold."

"Qiren!" his brother shrieked, bursting through the open door on Yinshui. "Didi, what are you—"

He stared at the gold pieces in Lan Qiren's palm, and grabbed the nearest cabinet for support.

"A-Ren?" Lan Haijing wheezed. "Did—did you just—"

"En. Once matters are settled here, I will bring them back to the Cloud Recesses."

"What?" Sisi screamed. "I don't even know this young master!"

"No," Meng Shi wailed. "He's not A-Yao's father, and if I leave now—"

Lan Qiren handed the money over.

The madam stamped the two women's contracts and passed them to Sisi.

Qingheng-jun fainted.

[robininthelabyrinth]

What if nmy, jgy and lxc can hear each other thought after they became brother?

ao3

1

Lan Xichen was dreaming.

He dreamt that he was walking along a road, dust on his feet, a small pack on his back, and bruises on his face from where he’d fallen; it felt as if everyone was looking at him, gawking at him, every one of them acting as though they knew everything about him just by looking at him and he hated them –

Do not succumb to rage, Lan Xichen thought, the familiar rule popping into his mind at once.

Rage isn’t the problem, some part of his mind thought back at him. The problem is – why do you care what they think? They’re always going to think something.

They were judging him. How dare they judge him? He’d made something of himself, made himself smart and tricky and capable, but no one cared about that, they judged him, they sneered at him –

Sneering for no reason is prohibited.

Oh for – he just said that they were sneering for a reason.

He did not! The whole point of what he said was that they were sneering because they were unfairly judging him, Lan Xichen argued, and was momentarily amused at himself for arguing with himself in a dream. He would have to write down this dream in the morning and see if he could explore whatever internal strife within him was the cause. And that they weren’t worthy of judging him.

I thought ‘Arrogance is forbidden’?

Are you quoting Lan sect rules at me?

Excuse you both, he was trying to think here!

I’d say brooding rather than thinking.

Lan Xichen agreed with that. It really was mostly brooding, brooding on all the wrongs that had been done to him and paranoia against the whole world. Brooding and walking, walking and brooding –

Like a chicken.

He was not like a chicken. What the fuck. Who the fuck compared lusting for revenge to chickens?

I’m just saying, if you’re going to be brooding, you may as well have some eggs –

Lan Xichen woke up laughing. He still wasn’t sure what the meaning of the dream was, but he did meander down to Caiyi town in order to have some eggs.

He passed it off as a craving.

2

Lan Xichen knew from the first sight of the jingshi how this dream would go.

He would be walking, slowly and gravely, knowing already what he would find: the sight of Wangji kneeling in front of his mother’s house. Only six years old, too young to understand, and yet faced with such terrible loss.

He would go up to him and take him by the shoulder, seeking to comfort him, and he would turn and that would be when Lan Xichen would see his face – dead eyes vacant, blood spilling from his mouth, thirty-three whip marks tearing his back apart and yet that did not seem to be the greatest blow…

The dream never changed.

And so Lan Xichen walked.

He walked, slowly and gravely, and he saw little Wangji, and he –

He’s like a little figurine!

Lan Xichen paused. It was true, of course; he’d had that thought a dozen times before when thinking of his younger brother in his youth. Just not usually in this dream.

One of the expensive ones, his bizarre train of thought continued, utterly nonsensical. The ones you can only get in the shops in the city, all pudgy-faced and red-cheeked with eyes half the size of their face. I always thought those were dreadfully unrealistic.

Perhaps a little.

They’re scary is what they are, another part of his brain thought. Can we get to the part of the dream with all the blood instead?

Seriously?

At least he’s an adult when that happens.

Fair enough.

Wait, hold up, go back, since when am I scared of dolls? I’m not scared of dolls.

Neither was Lan Xichen.

Not dolls. Creepy unliving mannikins in the shape of dolls that are almost but not quite human, that move in stuttering motion that is almost but not quite right, that smile and look at you when they shouldn’t be able to move...

Huh. Apparently I am scared of dolls, the first part of his mind thought, bemused, and Lan Xichen agreed. He’d never known about that particular phobia of his before before, but now that he thought about it, it sounded pretty awful.

He really hoped such dolls wasn’t going to be making in appearance in this dream. It was bad enough as it was.

He sighed, and lifted his foot to continue walking.

Couldn’t you just not go up to him?

What?

That’s a good point. If you already know you’re dreaming, there’s no point in just walking through it.

But…Lan Xichen always went. It’s his brother!

Maybe it’s a creepy doll. Can you really tell the difference?

Wangji was not a creepy doll. How did they get on the subject of creepy dolls, anyway?

No idea. But it’s definitely about as stupid as chickens when it comes to stupid dream thoughts.

Great. Now Lan Wangji – sitting there in all his Lan white – has transmogrified into a chicken, plump with white feathers.

Lan Xichen hoped his subconscious was happy now.

No, this is great actually. No killing livestock within the Cloud Recesses, right?

What?

If he’s a chicken, he’s immune from –

Lan Xichen woke up out of sheer frustration.

(Still better than the usual dream, he supposed.)

3

He was walking through a forest, big loping steps that ate up the ground almost like a run. There were so many things to do, and never enough time to do it in – everything was always a rush, and only the dead had time to sleep.

He was walking through a forest, and the moon was big and bright above his head, shining a dull red in the night sky, a killing moon that boded ill. He could feel the pressure of it on his shoulders like a weight, like an extra presence that never left him; it was both friend and foe, loved and hated, for it would show him the way and rob him of it at the same time.

He was walking through a forest, and he wondered to himself why his dreams recently always featured so much fucking walking.

Oh, no, now you’ve ruined the mood, some part of Lan Xichen’s brain complained, and it might actually be him, come to think of it. I was enjoying that. We were going so fast, it was almost like running.

It wasn’t anything like running.

How did you manage to stop the dream, anyway? Some other part of him thought, sounding almost wistful. You barely got five steps into it before you were making unwarranted comments.

Lucid dreaming.

Was it the moon that gave it away? I’ve never seen it hang so low or so threatening.

It’s not a moon, it’s a metaphor.

All dreams are metaphors, really, Lan Xichen protested, but he was snickering. But also, hold up, look up a second – is it just me, or doesn’t it feel like the moon looking at us?

The moon doesn’t have eyes, the smart voice said immediately. It doesn’t have eyes, so it can’t be – okay, never mind, the moon is definitely looking at us. Also, it’s angry about it.

That was because it wasn’t a moon. He really wasn’t sure what was so hard to grasp about this.

The moon is growling at us! That’s pretty hard to grasp!

If this dream is lucid, can it be changed? Lan Xichen asked, trying to force his dream self to move or dodge or something without success. The moon was getting larger in a threatening sort of way that suggested that it was coming closer. Rapidly. A change would be good right now, really –

I don’t want to be eaten by a moon! I don’t want to be eaten by a fucking moon!

Stop saying it’s a fucking moon already! It’s not a moon! It’s just Baxia!

Lan Xichen opened his eyes and sat ramrod-straight up in bed in a single movement.

“Oh, no,” he said.

4

They met in Qinghe, which had the virtue of being Nie Mingjue’s sole domain in a way Gusu wasn’t yet, for Lan Xichen, and which Lanling was likely never to be for Jin Guangyao.

“All right,” Jin Guangyao declared, stalking in through the doors looking more upset than Lan Xichen had ever seen him. “Which one of you was responsible for the chicken comment?!”

Nie Mingjue coughed.

“I knew it!”

“I wasted a great deal of time on dream analysis after that,” Lan Xichen said, because apparently they were going to be discussing this rather serious issue  affecting both himself and his two sworn brothers in the stupidest way possible and he was oddly all right with that. “I even consulted Uncle.”

Nie Mingjue coughed again, except this time it sounded less embarrassed and more like he was (badly) trying to hide laughter.

Even Jin Guangyao stopped scowling and started having to fight a smile. “Really?” he asked. “You told – about the chickens?”

“He thought it suggested a desire to settle down,” Lan Xichen confessed.

“The man wants grand-nephews,” Nie Mingjue said dryly. “You could dream of anything and he’d interpret it as wanting to settle down. Speaking of settling down, would you both like to do so? There’s calming tea.”

Qinghe had a very specific brand of tea they meant when they referred to ‘calming tea’, imported from the west and south for its reputed use in subduing even the most vicious temper, and it was most definitely not made of flowers. However, as mild intoxicants went, it didn’t have quite the same crippling effect on Lan Xichen as liquor, and he was happy to accept a cup.

“So,” Lan Xichen said after a while. “We’ve been sharing dreams.”

“It certainly appears that way,” Nie Mingjue agreed.

“How do we make it stop?” Jin Guangyao wanted to know.

“I don’t know how it started,” Lan Xichen said. “Much less how to make it stop. Unless this is familiar to either of you…?”

They both shook their heads.

“Could it have had something to do with the sworn brother ceremony?” Jin Guangyao suggested.

“Improbable,” Nie Mingjue said.

“There have been plenty of sworn brotherhoods throughout history,” Lan Xichen agreed. “Someone would have mentioned dream-sharing if it were a side effect, if only because it would be so useful.”

“Dream-sharing?” Nie Mingjue said, frowning. “That’s your problem?”

“It’s useful, but intrusive,” Jin Guangyao said. He was frowning, which he rarely did in public – or even in front of Nie Mingjue these days. The revelation had clearly shaken him deeply. “Dreams can’t be controlled. What if one of us started dreaming about, I don’t know, killing each other?”

“We would agree in advance not to take offense,” Lan Xichen assured him. “As you say, dreams cannot be controlled –”

“I don’t mind the dreams,” Nie Mingjue put in. “It’s hearing your thoughts that’s getting to me.”

They both turn to look at him.

“What?” he asked. “Oh, that hasn’t started for you two yet? Something to look forward to, because it’s a pain.”

5

They ultimately concluded that it was a curse.

A curse gone wrong, of course, but it had the markings of one, and after some research they were even able to narrow down to which one it must have been at the start.

“Why did it go so wrong?” Lan Xichen wondered, looking at the historical records they’d dug up in Qinghe’s library. “Whoever it was surely wasn’t planning on us having this sort of connection.”

“Baxia deflected it, I think,” Nie Mingjue said, and Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen shared unnerved looks.

It was one thing to know that your sworn brother had a spiritual weapon to which his soul was tied and which he sometimes spoke of as if it were a person; it was yet another to feel that bond, the foreign energy that seeped into his skull at all times, to know that his lucid dreams were due to his persistent awareness of that extra being, to be able to sense the personality that was Baxia lingering on him like a ghost. Or a guai, more accurately.

“It must have happened during or very soon after we swore our oath,” Nie Mingjue continued, oblivious as always to their disquiet. “Our qi was in parallel at that time, binding us together, and she would have been able to spread the attack between us all.”

“The ultimate goal of something like this is to drive someone mad – specifically you, da-ge, since it seems to be hitting you first and hardest." Lan Xichen said, grimacing. And given the Nie sect’s infamous tendency towards qi deviations, they might have thought they could get away with it without anyone finding out…how utterly vile. “Whoever did it must have a great deal of hatred.”

“Or not a lot to lose,” Jin Guangyao said. His hands were gripped tightly behind his back, thumbs digging into his wrists. He seemed to be thinking the word vile, vile, vile on repeat – possibly he was agreeing? Lan Xichen couldn’t quite tell; the curse was affecting him a little more slowly than his two sworn brothers. “Desperate people do desperate things.”

Nie Mingjue looked up with a frown. “Meng Yao, what do –” he started to say, then frowned, having clearly been sidetracked. “You think it’s an insult when I call you that?”

Jin Guangyao, equally distracted, stared at him. “You mean it as a compliment?”

“I don’t exactly like your father,” Nie Mingjue pointed out, sounding a bit puzzled – which, in fairness, he had never been anything but extremely obvious about his disdain for Jin Guangshan. “Why would I think adding his name to yours is a good thing? I’d rather honor the side of your blood that gave you that brain, since it isn’t the Jin sect.”

Jin Guangyao looked flattered – or, no, he didn’t look anything, but Lan Xichen was getting that distinct impression from him nevertheless. It seemed he’d reached the sensing-feelings stage: Nie Mingjue felt a little embarrassed at the reaction, and they were both feeling warmer towards each other.

Maybe they should postpone curing this thing, Lan Xichen thought briefly. If it could help them repair –

“Absolutely not,” both of his sworn brothers said together.

“We’re fixing this at once,” Nie Mingjue insisted, glaring at Lan Xichen.

“Immediately,” Jin Guangyao agreed.

Lan Xichen made a gesture of surrender. “I already have some ideas on how to cure the problem,” he said. “I won’t drag my feet, I promise.”

“Good,” Jin Guangyao said. “I would kill to get rid of this.”

“Speaking of that,” Nie Mingjue said, and he looked like he was starting to get angry, “let’s go back to that discussion of desperate people and how you were thinking about how to kill me –”

6

Lan Xichen had always respected Nie Mingjue – as a man, as a leader, as a friend – but his respect had recently reached new heights when he realized exactly how much the man wanted to murder just about other every sect leader out there, and yet didn’t.

Baxia’s unstinting support for this idea didn’t exactly help.

Jin Guangyao – who Lan Xichen was discovering to be far more vicious than his pleasant smile might have suggested – found Nie Mingjue’s grudge-bearing pettiness to be absolutely hilarious.

What about that one? he asked gleefully. Do we want to kill him?

yesevilkilldestroy, Baxia murmured. doitnow.

Please do not murder Sect Leader Lu, Lan Xichen said. He didn’t think Nie Mingjue actually would, but he felt the need to put his views out there.

I don’t know, Nie Mingjue said thoughtfully. He tried to flirt with me once.

That’s not a crime –

I was ten.

killevildestroy

I’m with da-ge on this one, Jin Guangyao chimed in. Just murder them all. I can provide an alibi.

He could provide six, in fact, each one of them smoothly unrolling like crisp paper in their mutual mind-space – they’d figured out a way to get some privacy – and Nie Mingjue huffed a mental laugh even as Lan Xichen sighed.

It would just figure that his two sworn brothers liked each other much more now that they had access to each other’s secret vicious thoughts – thoughts Nie Mingjue would never act on, given his principles, to the point that Jin Guangyao had once doubted he even had them; thoughts that Jin Guangyao thought would disgust them both, but which Nie Mingjue seemed to rather enjoy as long as Jin Guangyao never took any steps to actually execute them.

What disasters they both were.

“No murder,” Lan Xichen said sternly, futilely trying to conceal the warmth of his affection for them both.

His uncle turned to frown at him. “Xichen?”

Lan Xichen realized he’d spoken aloud by accident and flushed. “Forgive me, Uncle. I was –”

Reciting Lan sect rules!

“– contemplating the obligation not to take lives unnecessarily,” Lan Xichen said, finishing the lie almost smoothly. He’d gotten much better at it ever since the curse began.

Somewhat worse at self-restraint, though, which was a problem because he was apparently the only one of them with a functioning moral compass – Nie Mingjue had principles, which were most emphatically not the same thing (the concept of unearned mercy seemed to puzzle him, as did sympathy for people forced by circumstance), and Jin Guangyao…

Well, he tried.

Sometimes.

Mostly he faked his way through it.

Which was about what Nie Mingjue apparently did most of the time, too, so…

Lan Qiren was giving Lan Xichen a doubtful look, but seemed to accept the explanation and returned to his own meditation. Which was Lan Xichen was supposed to be doing, but Nie Mingjue was dealing with some minor sect leaders in his district with accompanying commentary by Jin Guangyao (supposedly supervising something in Lanling but actually bored out of his mind), and it was just so much more interesting…

You can meditate later, Nie Mingjue thought at him. I appreciate your level-headedness – as do my advisors. I’ve been getting compliments on how well I’m keeping my temper.

Thank A-Yao for that, Lan Xichen said. He’s the sneaky one.

I am, Jin Guangyao said, utterly shameless. And da-ge’s the straightforward one who punched my father in the face.

They all had a collective moment of gleeful bliss at the memory.

Do not damage others, Lan Xichen finally reminded them, albeit reluctantly.

Do not keep company with evil, Nie Mingjue shot back.

Do not act impulsively!

Do not argue with your family, Jin Guangyao interjected. For it does not matter who wins.

…ouch.

He got you there, Nie Mingjue crowed. A-Yao – mark your words.

Yes, yes, Jin Guangyao grumbled. I acknowledge you both as my real family now; will you stop holding the attempted murder thing over my head?

No, never, since it was quite possibly the only way to squeeze any empathy out of his (charmingly) self-absorbed sworn brother.

Anyway, it turned out well in the end, didn’t it? Nie Mingjue added. He thought I hit him because it turned out that he’d instigated the curse to be set against us.

Only you would end up getting a confession out of punching someone, da-ge, Lan Xichen said, amused. It’s positively unfair to the rest of us.

Yeah, da-ge. Leave some luck for the rest of us.

You’re acting sect leader of Lanling in light of your father’s imprisonment, Nie Mingjue reminded Jin Guangyao. How much more luck do you need?

I got that through hard work, thank you.

killevilliesLIES

…I retract the statement and request that Baxia stop glaring at me. Please.

Nie Mingjue snickered.

Lan Xichen laughed.

“A-Huan,” his uncle said. “What on earth is so funny?”

Lying was forbidden, so Lan Xichen was just – not going to explain.

Ever.

[xiyao-feels]

☕ possibly unpopular opinion, but I don't think lxc survives his seclusion. I think his world view is too badly shattered and he either wastes away slowly or outright kills himself.

I like—one-quarter agree with this, I think?

On the one hand, as I've said before, I do think CQL LXC kills himself. The man is just... really completely broken. And also just tried to die with JGY. I mean, I don't even think he goes into seclusion first, necessarily.

On the other hand, while MDZS LXC is also very much broken, I don't think he does die; even aside from anything else, JGY is still sealed in the coffin, and dying would be leaving him behind in a way it wouldn't in CQL—so in MDZS I don't think he does.

The part where I totally disagree with you is—I don't think it's about his worldview. It's about JGY being dead. I—think people very much want it to be about something other than that (including his grief for JGY /and NMJ/, which, still no) , and I am as ever prepared to look at a textual argument in favour if someone wants to assemble one, but honestly I think the text is pretty clear here. Throughout the temple, he's reacting and processing pretty normally—to borrow from my own previous work, here's an overview of some of his reactions to things and people other than JGY:

Obviously we see [LXC] react when he’s telling LWJ about WWX’s feelings, but even beyond that, even when he’s occupying a more background role in the narrative, we’re given his reaction quite a few times. He sighs when LWJ seals his spiritual powers (ch 100); he tends to NHS, covering with his outer robe (ch 102), comforting him when he’s disturbed at the sight of the coffin (ch 103), protecting him from SMS (after NHS frames him for stabbing him, ch. 107) and from NMJ (ch 107), and comforting him and giving him pain medicine about the wound in his leg (ch 108); along with LWJ, he’s distressed by the sound of JC’s sword-scraping technique against JGY’s music (ch 101); he tries to warn JC a couple of times when JC is fighting JGY (ch 101), cautions JL (ch 101) and later JC (ch 102) about worsening JC’s injuries, and along with JL, WWX, and LWJ freezes when JC slaps JL to the ground (ch 102); he asks Minshan why he’s being rude to LWJ, and a little later, with SMS and JL, pauses in astonishment when LWJ laughs (ch 100); he averts his gaze from and seems perhaps embarassed by the ghosts that WWX summons (ch 104); he calls out to WWX to remind him that his current body is closely related to JGY, and will therefore attract NMJ’s fierce corpse (ch 107). He actually has a couple of entertaining reactions to Wangxian being Wangxian: he coughs and tells WWX it is maybe not the best time and place for this when WWX is about to repeat “I really wanted to sleep with you,” and then later he and Jin Ling inexplicably! move their sitting cushions far away from Wangxian’s and gaze into the distance (ch 100).

And of course he reacts to JGY again and again, and—again!—is engaging and processing. Again pulling from my previous post—

And more than anything else—in what I think is a very instructive contrast—he reacts to JGY, in a way that reflects an ongoing continual emotional investment. He is, quite notably, consistently worried about JGY and unable to stand the sight of him in pain, even when he thinks he shouldn’t be. When the coffin trap goes off, and they overhear Jin cultivators wailing and a pungent smoke emerges, there’s worry in LXC’s eyes; after JGY and Minshan make it out, and JGY takes some medicine against the poison, LXC hesitates for a moment and then asks what happened (ch 103). After LWJ cuts JGY’s hand off—which means /after/ he’s taken JL hostage, note—LXC “seemed as though he wanted to help him for an instant,” though “in the end he dared not” (ch 106). When Minshan asks him for medicine for JGY, seeing how terrible JGY looks, he hesitates slightly before they’re interrupted by NMJ’s success fighting the Jin cultivators (ch 107). After they’ve defeated NMJ, he treats JGY’s wrist; moreover, “Seeing that Jin GuangYao almost passed out from the pain, Lan XiChen, who in the beginning wanted to use this to punish him, still didn’t have the heart to bear it,” and goes for the pain-relief medicine from NHS. And this is all not even accounting for his reactions to JGY either during his questioning of JGY or post-stabbing!

and

For the first, he calls out Sect Leader Jin when JGY starts in on JC after JC calls him the son of a prostitute (ch 104), although notably he does not do the same in their earlier confrontation when JGY is distracting JC in order to defeat him, only warning JC (ch 101); when JGY confesses to having burned down the brothel, he’s distressed when JGY says that it wasn’t entirely to remove the traces (ch 105); he becomes /less/ angry about the second siege and about QS when it turns out that he was operating under constraint in those conditions (ch 106); and of course, the thing he’s angriest about is JGY killing his father, “and even in such a way” (ch 106). In ch 103, looking down at the coffin he is shocked that JGY buried something that caused such horror to its surroundings, but without further information about JGY’s reasons this does not metamorphose into anger.

And there's even more! I don't want to quote all of that section because it's really long, but you get the point: before JGY dies, he's distressed, sure, but he's still processing.

And then after JGY dies, it's—

Lan XiChen staggered a few steps back from the push. He hadn’t realized what happened yet.

Lan XiChen stared at the coffin enveloped in seven guqin strings. He was still lost in thought. Nie HuaiSang extended a hand and waved it before his eyes, terrified, “… B-Brother XiChen, are you alright?”

Lan XiChen, “HuaiSang, just now, was he really trying to catch me off guard with an attack?”

Nie HuaiSang, “I think I saw it…”

Hearing his hesitation, Lan XiChen pressed, “Think it over some more.”

Nie HuaiSang, “If you ask me like that, I can’t be sure either… It really did seem like…”

Lan XiChen, “Cut out the ‘seem like’! Did it happen or not?!”

Nie HuaiSang answered with difficulty, “… I don’t know, I really don’t know!”

This was the only thing Nie HuaiSang knew to say when he was desperate. Lan XiChen buried his forehead in his palm. He seemed as if his head was about to split, unwilling to speak again.

Lan XiChen was startled, “Induce? Induce what?”

Lan WangJi’s voice was low, “Jin GuangYao’s killing intent.”

If it were the usual ZeWu-Jun, he couldn’t have failed to fathom this. But right now, it was likely he had no more space in his mind to think.

(ch 109)

Veins suddenly lined the back of the hand in which Lan XiChen placed on his forehead. His voice sounded muffled, “… Just what does he want to do? I once thought I knew him well, and then I realized I did not. Before tonight, I thought I knew him well once more, but now I do not.” Nobody could give him an answer. Lan XiChen repeated in frustration, “Just what does he want to do?”

Of the people here, some were cleaning up the scene, some were solidifying the seal on the coffin, some were thinking about how to move it safely, and some were feeling angry. Lan QiRen raged, “XiChen, what in the world is wrong with you?!”

As his hand pressed the corner of his forehead, Lan XiChen’s face was full of an unspeakable grief. He seemed tired, “… Uncle, I am begging you. Ask no further. Really. Right now, I really wish to say nothing.”

Lan QiRen had never seen Lan XiChen, a child he single-handedly brought up, look so agitated and discomposed. He looked at him, then looked at Lan WangJi, surrounded by disciples alongside Wei WuXian, and felt more irritated the more he looked. He felt that of these two of his proudest disciples who had been absolutely perfect, neither listened to him anymore and both gave him much worry.

Lan QiRen watched Lan XiChen who followed behind him sluggishly, still absent-minded, and sighed forcefully before he left with a flip of his sleeves.

(ch 110)

And then in the banquet extras, three months later:

Wei WuXian still clung to Lan WangJi’s chest, face buried at his neck as he felt the sandalwood aroma on Lan WangJi’s body grow even richer. He felt lazy all over, eyes closed, “Is your brother alright?”

Lan WangJi embraced his naked back, stroking again and again. After a while of a silence, he answered, “Not really.”

Both of the two were sticky with sweat. Wei WuXian felt an itch crawl from his skin all the way to the bottom of his heart as Lan WangJi stroked him. He twisted somewhat uncomfortably, swallowing Lan WangJi even deeper.

Lan WangJi lowered his voice, “In the years when I was in secluded meditation, Brother had always been the one to comfort me.”

Yet now the situation was the exact opposite.

Likely because Lan QiRen got a heart attack whenever he saw Wei WuXian, he simply decided not to look at him, staring straight forward. Lan XiChen was pleasant as always, holding the hint of a smile at his lips that always seemed like spring wind. Yet, perhaps because of the secluded meditation, Wei WuXian felt that ZeWu-Jun looked a bit frail.

(ch 115)

After the tasteless meal, the servants took away the plates and tables. As usual, Lan XiChen started to summarize the recent plans for the sect. But after listening for just a few sentences, Wei WuXian began to feel that he was a bit absent-minded. He even remembered two night-hunting locations wrong and didn’t realize after he spoke, causing Lan QiRen to throw a couple of sideway looks at him and puff his goatee into the air. A while later, he finally couldn’t help but interrupt him. Fortunately, the sect banquet finally ended, although somewhat hastily.

(ch 116)

So to recap—before JGY dies, he's distressed but he's still processing and reacting to things basically normally, he's got his head in the game. And then after JGY dies, he is very much /not/ processing things, he's not reacting normally, the things he's preoccupied with are entirely about JGY, LQR is like 'I've never seen him this way before.' And when we see him three months later, failing at very basic tasks he's long performed perfectly, it's the same kind of symptom—just as it was in ch 109, he seems to have no more space in his mind to think.

There's also the explicitly-drawn parallels between him and LWJ—by LQR, and by LWJ himself, paralleling LXC's current state with his own time in seclusion. And what would LWJ have needed comforting about while he was in seclusion? It's not the shattering of his worldview—it's Wei Ying.

I'm not going to go and rewatch and cap CQL temple, but the same basic pattern shows. Before JGY's death, he's functional and processing: afterwards, he's broken. I do think CQL LXC is more emotionally agitated before JGY's death than MDZS LXC is, but he's also even less functional afterwards so it evens out. If you go to 18:40ish in ep 50 (on YT, might be a different timestamp in Netflix) you can watch LXC stand frozen and stare into space and totally fail to react to anything including the conversation right next to him about his brother and WWX having run off.

I mean, I think it's also about the manner of JGY's death, if JGY had, idk, died heroically saving JL's life or something a year earlier he'd still have broken but probably not as badly? But it really is about JGY.

Tldr: I do think he kills himself in CQL; I don't think he does, even passively, in MDZS; but either way, his state at the end of canon isn't about his shattered worldview, it's about JGY being dead.

[crossdressingdeath]

I feel like at least XY and JGY are self-aware of how terrible they are and the awful things they do, they hate everything and everyone and then themselves. But JC's so narrow-minded... he's self-deprecating, in a way, but immediately after he's unable to recognize his idiocy and own to his shitty behaviour and his horrendous mentality and lack of morals and... god, he's so annoying lmao. MXTX really said let's give every antagonist a charming personality and then ran out when it was JC's turn 😖

No, I am pretty sure XY and JGY are convinced that they're in the right. The difference between them and JC is a) they never openly start talking about how they're just so awful and no one loves them because they're the worst without ever actually realizing that they are in fact awful and the worst and that's something they should fix and b) you can see how they got to that point. XY and JGY both grew up in awful, damaging environments and are the products of those environments; it doesn't justify what they do, but you can understand why they do it. JC had every advantage anyone in the setting could ask for and was still awful even before things went to shit. Like, he's cruel and abusive and spiteful and petty well before the fall of Lotus Pier! He doesn't go through anything that isn't shared by at least one other character, and no one else with a similar background to his who goes through anything similar to what he does does anywhere near the number of horrific, unforgivable things he does! WWX comes the closest, and his biggest crimes are single events done in the heat of the moment with his control slipping so much I'd argue he's at most only partially culpable for them that he regrets later! Compare that to JC's thirteen years of brutally torturing people to death after directly causing the deaths of fifty innocent people, some of whom he owed his life to.

And I think the biggest difference is that... JGY and XY don't get away with it. They aren't faced with people who have given up and just want them to go away, they're faced with people who are angry and vengeful and demand they answer for what they've done. They don't get to run away from their misdeeds. JC does. Hell, he literally runs away after the golden core reveal! He runs off screaming! And it's hilarious, but it also means that JC is so terrified of facing the consequences of his actions that he will literally run away and do everything in his power to deny the truth rather than take responsibility like an adult. And XY and JGY don't even get that option. They hid their misdeeds from the people who are now judging them, and the truth came out in a situation where for one reason or another they couldn't just walk away so now they have to face it. And to their credit at that point they do seem to realize if nothing else that they hurt people they didn't want to hurt, if not that they were actively in the wrong. JC, though? JC never hid what he was doing. He treated WWX like shit to his face. He tortured people to death in his courtyard. JC didn't hide what he was doing, either because he knew it was wrong or even just (as I'm pretty sure was the case with XY and JGY) because he knew the people he cared for wouldn't approve. JC faces zero real consequences because the person with the most right to hold him accountable (WWX) was raised to believe that JC had the right to behave the way he did and has either given up on or never had any interest in justice or getting him to change. JC never has to face what he did because the people around him have given up on him ever reaching even the lowest level of human decency, so he'll deny it and push the blame onto others and at most leave them alone now that they've made the facts clear; JGY and XY are forced to face what they did, and seem to have at least some realization of just how badly they hurt their loved ones. I think we're supposed to see XY and JGY as sympathetic villains; not in the sense of them being right in any way, but in the sense that these are people who have suffered and responded to that suffering the only way they ever learned how to. JC, though, is just a rich, powerful man using that power to get away with the abuse he heaps on those beneath him, and a shit mother and distant father in a setting full of parents who are either terrible or dead does not make that sympathetic.

[vegastalker]

MY+JGY Time Travel + Fuck It AU

Let me offer you another entry from my dreamwidth dot com, it should be Fix-It but i'm not really sure it fix anything? anyway .

he concept is very simple and concrete (?)

Young Meng Yao whose mother had just died and has come back from being thrown down the stairs of Lanling is healing from his wounds in a cabin in the forest, when he founds a badly wounded man, who wears golden robes and has a smudged red dot on his forehead, the man also seems to lack a hand and is bleeding from a wound in his chest.

The man stumbles infront of Meng Yao and says "i found you" before collapsing into the ground.

Meng Yao like the confused good soul he is takes care of the man, eventually this one wakes up and presents himself as 'Jin Guangyao, but that is a name that has faded in the wind like all the ones i had before'

This is a time-travel + fix it or fuck it + meng yao gets a mentor figure + jiggy gets to heal

JGY let's MY know that he is himself from the future a one that went pretty good until it didn't, so he asks MY to let him lead his life from now on in order to have a better and more favourable future. MY being quite horrified accepts.

First thing first JGY, now called Lianfang to avoid confusion and Meng Yao get to heal their respective wounds and acclimate to each other. Lianfang creates a plan of simple steps for them both.

Take the kid to Laoling Qin to be a discipline ( he doesn't want them anywhere near the Nie and maybe the Qin could be a good ally )

Climb Ranks and make himself seen in the cultivation word as a discipline rather than a deputy (This way his cultivation will grow)

Get Qin Su and Meng Yao to be sent to Gusu for classes (To make them bond as friends and to put Little Meng Yao in Lan Xichen's path to see what happens...)

Wait for the war and be prepared

That's all i have, I have some sparse dialogue between little Meng Yao and Jiggy, because they do talk a lot

Meng Yao comes up with the idea of Jiggy being his uncle, because "You are way older than what a-niang was when she died"  Meng Yao gets to be refered as Xiao Di and Jin Guangyao as Lianfang-ge <3 

And Jin Guangyao has a lot of mental dialogue from being a stranded person in a time that isnt his. He was supposed to reincarnate in his past self, not to appear in front of him! So the plan didn't work like he wanted it to work, but when has something worked out for him? Never! Not being part of the Jin, not his marriage, certainly not his nebulous relationship with his sworn brothers! Nothing works

I want this to be a MY+JGY fic, but I think I could throw Xue Yang into it and maybe Su She too eventually. JGY gets his past self the besties he never thought he would need. 

[mxrinelifeclub]

homemaker wwx au

modern au - large extended Lan family - more omegaverse tropes

so for this au, I want to lean more into a submissive wwx. he will still be smart (Molecular gastronomist major in uni) but after losing his parents and suffering the abuse and abandonment from the jiangs, he just wants a stable home and family so doesn't mind handing over control with lwj who can provide it. also, he knows lwj would never take advantage of him.

mini backstory for wwx is the same as canon: his parents die and he's taken in by the jiangs. yzy is still abusive, wwx isn't the closest to jyl and jc even getting bullied by jc. at age 14 jfm buys wwx a small cheap apartment and gives him enough money in his account to sustain himself each month before leaving him on his own. Facing ridicule from his peers WWX transfers schools (he has to go to jfm’s office and ask for his signature) since omegaverse is an exploration of gender imo, WWX wears the girls uniform and switches back and forth depending on how he feels. Something he wasn’t allowed to do under the Jiangs household. There he meets wq, wn, nhs and LWJ.

For the Lans everyone is alive and they’re one big happy family. Lan An is the grandpa who’s a romantic and still very much in love with his wife who passed away. Qhj and madam Lan are alive and well and happily married. Lqr is the doting uncle because he didn’t have to raise his nephews and still has the influence of his father. Lan Yi is the rich aunt who shows up to the family functions with a new partner every time. There are more Lan family members and they get together for everything! Birthdays, holidays, graduations, a work promotion. These people love getting together. When Madam Lan learns about Wwx, she tells LWJ to invite him to the next get-together. he's basically adopted into the Lan family. they adore him and love his cooking (he had to get good at it for survival since he lived alone and then it became a passion/comfort hence his major) and they are just waiting for lwj to claim him. lwj himself wants to be worthy of wwx, so he waits until after they both graduate uni to propose. (they are already living together and dating while in uni)

one day at work (he works at a flower shop) an old woman approaches him saying he looks like someone familiar to her. turns out it's bssr, his grandmother. they get together and explain how she didn't know about him (her and cssr had a falling out and cssr eloped with wcz and they never reconnected) she didn't know her daughter died or that she had a grandson. anyway for a year wwx leaves lwj to spend time not only with bssr and the rest of her family but he gets to meet the Wei's.

while he's gone, lxc introduces to the family his omega, meng yao. I don’t want to back them bad guys but there will be tension involved. Jgy wants to be accepted by the family so he does his best to be the perfect son in law (they’re not married yet btw) and he is accepted into the Lans. Fast forward to WWX coming back. Jgy and LXC are excited to share news about Jgy’s achievement since it’s rare for omegas to last long in his field. The Lans congratulate him but some are confused cause Jgy is more work oriented than following societal norms. Enter LWJ who was running late because he went to pick WWX up at the airport (he also tried to initiate car s*x but was stopped lol). Anyway the Lans attention turns towards WWX. Jgy sees the Lans in a new light with WWX around. Lqr who he always talked to respectfully and didn’t try to overstep his boundaries is now loudly yelling and chasing WWX around the living room. Madam Lan who is always supportive and kind to him is pampering WWX, something he’s only seen her do to her sons. The children are a lot more lively playing along with WWX’s mischief. The Lans don’t treat him badly and in fact treat him better than his father ever has but this is different than what he’s used too. LXC notice’s Jgy’s mood plummeting. He speaks to LWJ basically insinuating that LWJ shouldn’t have brought WWX today cause now no one is recognizing Jgy (Jgy’s achievement was kept secret though). LWJ ignores him and they go back to where the other alpha’s are.

In the other room with the omegas and children, Jgy makes a pointed comment at WWX about his time with the Jiangs, thinking that he lived lavishly while Jgy had a rough upbringing. Anyway WWX gets up and leaves the room having a panic attack. Madam Lan has to get LWJ to calm him down. Madam Lan is obviously pissed, but keeps control of herself. She leaves to get a plate of food to give the two while they’re resting (panic attacks are mad draining lol). Back with the others who are now pissed at Jgy for ruining such a happy moment and upsetting their favorite nephew. Jgy’s plan of gaining sympathy backfired. LXC pulls him to the side exasperated but understanding Jgy’s train of thought explains why his family is upset and about WWX’s past. Thinking everything has been resolved, LXC goes to reassure his mother but it only infuriated her more. She calls Jgy an outsider and that LXC had no right to tell about WWX’s past. LWJ walks in, in the middle of the argument. He becomes furious attacking his brother. The other alphas break them apart but it’s WWX that gets LWJ to calm down. LWJ says that LXC can’t be trusted not only because of this but I have a past event I’m debating on adding or not as well but wangxian leave the party to go home. Feeling frustrated that her family is in shambles and the party was ruined madam Lan storms off to her with QHJ following her. The others eat a tense dinner before going home early.

Wangxian on the other hand unwinds with a bubble bath and soft s*x, formalizing their bond with matching bites, no longer wanting to wait until the mating ceremony. A couple weeks go by and LWJ returns to work (Rich king can work from home) when WWX gets back into the routine of stopping by at his job to bring him (+ Lqr’s lonely ass) lunch. LXC tries to speak with him but outside of greetings WWX is forbade from speaking with him so he runs away.

A few months later everything has calmed down though there’s the occasional side eye from someone in the family towards xiyao but the next event is better than the first. The rule to not speak with lxc is lifted and the biweekly sunday dinners with just the main Lan family starts again (LWJ was ghosting the but then his parents and uncle started showing up at his house instead lol)

Further down the line when xiyao and wangxian are both married WWX gets pregnant first. Everyone is happy but Jgy. Feeling like he doesn’t measure up to the favorite son in law who’s now giving grandchildren and feeling like a failure for not giving his alpha children (this isn’t coming from the Lans but societal pressure and his bastard father).

After that just wangxian fluff with baby A-yuan

[littlesmartart]

How would a meeting between WWX & MXY would go in happy au? MXY looks like a fun sized version of WWX- I cant decide if WWX would find that funny or weird. He WOULD be all "NOPE ABSOLUTELY NOT YOUNG MAN GO HOME" if MXY expressed interest in demonic cultivation (hes an array genius, WWX's notes look FASCINATING!), but I think they'd get along like a house on fire. Also did JGY find XY here? XY was 12ish at that time, and JZX seems to have a soft spot for strays and that would be 1 less murderer

anonymous said: hi! I really like your happy time line au where yanli & zixuan are both alive but I was just wondering what is the status of the wen remnants and wei wuxian in this au? Do they still die?

answering these together because they’re sort of related - so initially my Happy AU was just Everyone I Like Survives And Thrives Because I Say So, and so WWX never died, but... basically the more I’ve spoken with @guqin-and-flute about her 3zun Raise Jingyi AU (where WWX dies but Zixuan an Yanli don’t), the more I’ve got really interested in the idea of Yanli’s relationship with Xuanyu in a universe where everything went Very Badly Wrong with WWX, and so I think that maybe, in my universe, he dies too? he definitely comes back, without Xuanyu having to sacrifice himself, but I’m not sure how that happens because uhhhh [watches this space on guq’s AU] but like. I want the Wens to survive because LORD KNOWS we don’t need to fridge any more female characters. so... somehow they don’t die...? still working on that bit. Wen Qing and Wen Ning are like, Around. somewhere.

as far as WWX + MXY goes - the complexity is mostly due to the fact that Yanli has, consciously or not, taken one look at this mischievous, traumatised, sweet, ridiculous boy who likes to have his hair stroked and be fed soup, and realised that she can fill that awful awful hole in her heart without ever having to move on (an AU that allows Yanli to have Complex Issues and even... FLAWS??? [clutches pearls])... she knows, she does know that it’s not fair - not on her or Xuanyu - to try and replace one little brother with another, even if they are so similar, but... for a long time, it’s just easier than having to properly process her grief. (JC has almost the opposite reaction when Xuanyu gets inevitably dragged along with the Jin Horde - he’d never be deliberately cruel to a child, but his brain just sort of does [internal screaming] around Xuanyu because, uh, like HE’S processed WWX-related trauma either, so he does his very best to avoid him as much as he can)

uh yeah and then WWX comes back, and woomph. this is a HAPPY AU so it’s not awful, but it is a bit of a Time for poor Yanli’s heart. WWX has a lot of Complicated Feelings about being sort of replaced and basically everyone has to figure out how to reassure this poor man who is basically just fifty abandonment issues in a trenchcoat that he still has a place in this family that appears to have completely moved on without him. it helps a LITTLE that, after the initial NO THIS IS MY JIEJIE NOW WHO ARE YOU WEIRD INTERLOPER, Xuanyu just thinks he’s the coolest fucking person in existence. and WWX can’t hold a grudge worth shit in the first place so he has no hope against someone who legit thinks he’s great :)

xue yang is... hmmm. I haven’t read the novel so I mostly go by the drama ages and lore, meaning in this AU Xue Yang is the same generation (ish) as the rest of the main cast. I wanna give SongXiao their happy ever after though so like, JGY not helping JGS (and maybe getting some patricide. as a treat.) would probably mean that Xue Yang’s timeline is quite different so let’s say they just... don’t cross paths on that fateful day, and Xue Yang just sort of carries running around being a fucking gremlin without ruining the lives of everyone’s favourite Cultivation Power Couple, SongXiao adopt A-Qing and start their own sect, and it’s ALL GOOD OKAY.

more in this AU

[llycaons]

ep 25 (pt 3): MOM HOLY FUCK

I didn't want to screencap every single thing jyl said during her epic takedown, but I couldn't help myself. I think I missed like, three lines. but it was so thrilling I was back and rewatched the entire scene again. after episodes of watching wwx be disrespected, and knowing his history with myu, and knowing later how important being publicly supported is to him, this scene...wow. take it away, queen

IT BEGINS

oh and there's sect leader yao nosing in to give HIS unwanted opinion. look at her face lmao. and does he only have one set of robes? is he wearing the same thing to the night hunt as to the victory banquet? wow, embarassing. anyway, back to jyl murdering jzx in broad daylight

HE DID!!! AND IT WAS HARD!!

cut to wwx, clearly deeply impacted by this affirmation of their bond

RESPECT MY BROTHER OR SO HELP ME

HE'S WITH US!!! WE'RE HIS FAMILY AND HIS HOME!! AND IF YOU'RE RUDE TIO HIM YOU OFFEND ME AND ALL OF THE JIANGS!!!

and fuck, isn't this kind of acceptance and belonging something wwx has wanted for so long? isn't this one of the things that hurt him so badly to lose, and something he craves when he comes back? having a home, a community, belonging somewhere, having people ready to stick up for him and affirm their connection with each other in no uncertain terms. in the face of cruelty and disrespect, given the ife he's lives, of course that means a lot to him. it means everything, especially now

and madam jin still trying to keep this quiet, be a good girl and move along miss jiang, let the men go about their business and don't interfere. and jyl says absolutely not, this is important to me and I care about my brother and I will have an apology

this isn't something jc could have done for him, for many reasons, and it's one of the reasons that their relationship just doesn't have the same affection or stability as jyl and wwx's does, or lwj and wwx's does postcanon. in fact, I'd argue that jyl and wwx have a much stronger (and definitely healthier and more mutual loving) relationship than jc and wwx. because…idk, jyl was able to love wwx absolutely unconditionally, she wasn't hampered as much by a terrifying mother, a negligent father, and the pressures of leading the sect, and she never let her insecurities or her pain spill over into physical or even emotional attacks. she never made her problems wwx's problems, and she never blamed him for existing and being more liked/more skilled than she was. he definitely wasn't honest with her about everything,' but he was able to be more open and vulnerable with her than he could have been with jc. I can't imagine wwx going to jc to ask tearfully if LP was his fault…and jc would probably say it was. after all, he tried to strangle him about it and holds it over his head DECADES later. I wish jyl had the been the one to survive but ig that would have been a significantly less fraught story

I just think being safe around someone and being able to express your fear and pain and vulnerability is a really important part of having any kind of functional and healthy relationship, and it's really sad that circumstance and personality made that impossible for jc and wwx

omg poor jgy comes in like :) what's wrong, honored guests? and madam jin is such a bitch to him!

THIS WASN'T HIS FAULT. he has committed many crimes but he wasn't to blame for ANY of this. and how could he tell what was going on immediately by coming in? it was a really specific set of events that just went down involving people whose interpersonal dynamics he probably barely knows

you know you're acting like a real piece of shit when sect leader yao has to tell you to calm down

wwx and jyl are not seen as siblings by the rest of the cultivation world, probably because jfm never formally adopted him. (WHY???? bc of myu??), regardless jyl stands firm even in the face of accusations that he's dangerous and will bring trouble. something her mother always said, too. but jyl loves her little brother and she's not about to abandon him like everyone else. and she doesn't not even at the very end, she loved him so much she sacrificed her LIFE for him god I feel ill

a lot of conversation around whether jc and wwx see each other as brothers, which is probably not the case in the book based on some meta posts I've read about it. it's a little hazier here but I def see them as brothers and I'm still really skeeved out by ppl who ship them. there's way too much gray area and oh yeah, they have the same sister

back to jzx being a complete loser. madam jin trying to ger jyl to come along and her deferring politely until madam jin snaps at her son and he YELLS THIS in front of a massive crowd of sect leaders and disciples and then he runs away in shame I'm DYING god he's so fucking funny

and this scene! wwx is so polite to madam jin and she just ignores him! I refuse to believed jyl would have married jzx if he was still shitty to her brother (and/or homophobic) but there is no saving the rest of his family. girl why'd you marry in 😭

but I read a fic once (the simplest step forward or whatever the shit it was called) where jzx was this drunken, crass, homophobic lout and I was DYING because even if jyl had married a guy who was aggressively homophobic to her brother (she wouldn't) THAT'S STILL NOT HIS PERSONALITY AT ALLLL he's an awkward and well-meaning rich kid who extended genuine kindness to his illegitimate half-brother, uses formality to cover his true feelings, personally dug a lotus pond so the girl he liked would be less homesick if they got married, and died trying to prevent his cousin and future brother-in-law from killing each other. he had a shitty phase as a teenager but he's a good dude as an adult! and he does have dad energy, I agree with that one post

uh oh! wwx removing jc's hand from his arm! hopefully this isn't a heavily symbolic gesture the last time they truly see each other as allies

jc getting SO mad here because his pride is injured...wwx being so good at things is never something he'll be able to swallow easily, but he's letting his feelings get in the way of the fact that this makes the jiang clan stronger and if he supports and embraces wwx's abilities...idk, maybe nothing would have changed. but jgy did have a point all those years later. if wwx had stayed with the jiangs, perhaps the jins would invent an excuse to attack. I don't have a ton of faith in the nies and lans to go against them. regardless, he could have responded to this better. those anger issues...

[gloriousmonsters]

Top fives way for XiSuYao to work out?

ooh, nice one. I get a little chatty explaining each option so I stuck 'em under the cut after the first one :D

1. the 'accidental homewrecker'

assumed xiyao base, canon diverges with jgy escaping to dongying successfully - lxc spends a few years brooding, eventually discovers he can't, after all, be Cool and Normal about the person he loves being evil and gone and whatnot, and so quits his job and heads to dongying to find jgy/answers/the will to live. when he finds jgy, he's willing to talk and try and explain himself, nice. he's also cohabiting with sms and they are definitely fucking, less nice. sms is clearly pissed at him showing up, and jgy is... enigmatic. lxc stays the night and then just kind of winds up staying. there's off-kilter domesticity and seething drama and lots of poorly negotiated and communicated about sex. eventually, everyone relaxes just a little, start to grudgingly accept each other, and things just settle into a new normal. probably one of the chillest paths despite all the 'prestige movie where people scream at each other' energy simmering in the background

2. the 'grudging necromancy roadtrip'

if there's one thing songxuexiao has taught us, it's that there's no get-along shirt like your mutual lover's death. I have a chunk of au in the works where lxc resurrects sms in order to enlist his help in freeing + resurrecting jgy, but this could also be an au where sms somehow survived 🤷‍♂️. I like the resurrection angle because it makes everything Worse. regardless; a scenario where sms and lxc grudgingly work together to try and get jgy out of the coffin & return him to life, and in the process are forced to actually talk and Perceive each other for the first time in years. they're both bitterly jealous of what the other had with jgy and in the process of comprehending it start to see the good about each other. this is more focused on the sms/lxc leg of it but jgy's still very present and would ideally, eventually be returned, so i'm counting it

3. the 'bad end in a dating sim vibes' aka the 'this dove is pining for the fjords' option

okay, this isn't so much working as it is - i mean, if your definition of 'working' extends to 'when you kick whatever's malfunctioning a few times until it starts behaving' - look, I just like to sometimes think about a dark xisuyao take on an AU where jgy & sms's burial mounds plot works. jgy respects lxc stating that he never wants to see or speak to him again by, well, sticking him in a nice isolated prison house and never visiting him, which starts to drive lxc a bit off the deep end. sms eventually starts visiting him, originally to gloat but then partly because he's concerned about lxc clearly being suicidal (also still to gloat, he's only human, but really. yikes). this turns into jgy (mainly through sms) trying to coax/seduce lxc into joining him in Jinlintai again. this is both made less and more effective by the fact sms is never passing up an opportunity to flaunt the fact that he has jgy's favor now, ifyougetwhatimean, you know, since YOU didn't want to stay with him - but honestly, sms would also love lxc to come out of prison seclusion and into bed. and well, in this scenario, lxc - out of a mixture of desperate loneliness, excessive rationalization of terrible things, and some miserable horniness for spice - eventually does.

4. the 'hey babe i want to try something new tonight ;)'

this is more 'temporarily working' unless you finagle an au where canon events don't happen, but I'm obsessed with the idea of, during the timeskip, jgy and lxc getting into a relationship, having some exploratory kinky sex, and jgy, after a while, finding a way to work sms into it because he really doesn't want to have a secret affair but he also really wants to fuck sms. and possibly see lxc and sms fuck 👀. lxc and sms both participate with the anticipation it'll go badly, and are both sickened horrified disappointed etc to discover that they're very sexually compatible. the threesome sex is amazing. jgy keeps on suggesting doing it again and they can't really protest. they might actually have to start talking at parties if this keeps up, if only to coordinate nights. honestly I just love thinking about lxc and sms being incredibly grumpy about actually enjoying the set-up while jgy sits in the back going 'all according to keikaku'.

5. the 'wartime summer romance: trio edition: drama!!' one

this one is the least developed but I love the idea of some scenario where sms, having just been kicked out of/fled/etc the Lan Sect, encounters Meng Yao right around the time he picks Lan Xichen up, and pitches in to help save him (partly because he's hoping that if he helps save LXC's life maybe whatever questionable thing he did will be made up for) and the on-the-run romance becomes a confused three-way affair. lxc is starry-eyed over both the courageous young bookkeeper and soft-spoken outer disciple that saved him, sms has been crushing on lxc for years and is conflicted over something happening now but doesn't have the will to stop it or tell lxc about whatever shit he did, my has forged instant 'one foot in one foot out of the cultivation world' solidarity with sms and they're planning a summer wedding; and he is, of course, VERY into lxc as well, and basically they have an intense stupid teen romance until they hit civilization and things start to fall apart. sms' Whatever He Did (dependent on canon source) comes to light & lxc is betrayed, the three of them split up as lxc heads back to the Lan & my goes to spy on the Wen, etc...

...I kind of love the potential of this take because while it's more a beginning, than a 'working out', it opens the door to xisuyao feeling like a more. cohesive triad than any other take. I feel like lxc's relationship with jgy would be a little more wary, coming off his feelings of personal betrayal around sms, but he can't fully disregard or forget sms either - and things are further complicated by him being suspicious that sms had told jgy the truth, in the past, and jgy had chosen to conceal it as well... yeah, overall this is cheating because it's more scenario than endgame, but lbr, I was running out of ending ideas and this scenario compels me. 🤷‍♂️

now who wants to get in the xisuyao canoe with me