#because wen chao robbed his little brother of the life he was supposed to have.

[danmeichael]

jiang cheng's sexuality or desire for a relationship are secondary, he's actually an eternal bachelor because people are scared of wei wuxian going sweeney todd on them if they break jc's heart.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 11 second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Absurdity) 

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Message from the Lan Clan

After dinner the Yunmeng bros go to talk to Jiang Fengmian in his study. They're quiet and respectful here, with no shoulder-shoving or arguing. This scene has such Brady Bunch energy, where Dad's Study is the Man Place where boys come to talk about Serious Things.

The boys tell Dad Jiang about the Yin Iron and he says yeah, I know. This is probably why he let them run off on their road trip without punishing them, but he could have, like, shared data with them so they might have actually achieved something related to the Yin Iron, rather than just wandering around the countryside bonding with Lan Wangji and Nie Huaisang.

He shows them a letter from the Lans that basically says the Lan Clan is in the shit, and he tells them they've got to go to the Wen indoctrination because otherwise they will also be in the shit. 

He gives the boys a warning about the Yin Iron, which is that 

1. it can be refined and 

2. if you refine it carefully, it will not control you. 

Awesome tip, will definitely use, thanks pop.

(more behind the cut)

Jiang Cheng wants to argue about going to the Wen party, but Wei Wuxian vocally gets on board, not leaving any opportunity for whining. 

Wei Wuxian is only sucking up a little bit in this scene. He obviously has a lot of affection for Jiang Fengmian, but WWX doesn't play up to his favoritism nearly as much as he could. Compare, for example, how he leans into Yanli's preferential treatment of him.  

Fight Outside the Cold Cave

Over on the Gusu side of the country province township, the disciples have gathered outside the cold cave that previously none of them knew about, and Su She is freaking out. 

Most of the acting in The Untamed is naturalistic, but then there are occasional characters who are portrayed with a much more theatrical, broad style. Su She's villainy is not given a lot of layers; he's playing a type, more than a person.

Many of the villains in The Untamed are played this way, but not all. Wen Zhuliu, for example, is a genuinely horrifying bad guy while also conveying depth and ambivalence--despite having hardly any lines. And JGY is a masterpiece of a performance. For Su She, the directors or the actor have opted for "sniveling backstabber" as a type, which is unfortunate, because it robs his final scenes of emotional impact.

Lan Qiren tells the disciples to get to safety. He rushes forward, gamely getting his ass kicked by human cuisinart Wen Xu.  He's not as effective a warrior as either of his nephews but he's a brave S.O.B.

Hanguang Jun to the Rescue

Before things can go completely pear-shaped, Lan Wangji sails in with his guqin.

The Blue Steel technique of the Lan Clan

Like many gifted learners, Lan Wangji's musical abilities are more advanced than his social skills. Here he musically makes the ground literally explode, almost as if it had been specially rigged with incendiary charges.  

Lan Wangji is very pretty when he's worried, and his affection and concern for his uncle is touching. He's 100% not interested, as we will see, in Lan Qiren's whole "lets all die for the future of the Lan Clan while my nephews hide" agenda. He's on his own agenda of smiting the wicked and protecting the weak.

Notice how Su She is standing right next to Lan Qiren here, even holding his arm? The next thing that Lan Qiren says is to tell all the disciples to keep up as they run into the cave. Somehow Su She totally does not keep up, and he gets caught outside along with a bunch of other disciples.

Giving Up

Wen Xu and his men kill most of the other caught disciples, and then threaten Su She, asking him how to get into the cave. In fear for his life, he tells them. Not cool, Su She, but possibly forgivable. Although when you voluntarily join a, you know, battle cult, physical courage is kind of an important qualifier.

But this shit here...

They didn't fucking ask about the books, douchebag.  

Su She was there in Lan Qiren's house when the two heads of his clan knelt to each other, each claiming the right to be the one to stay behind and die. And he heard Lan Qiren say that the ancient books are the foundation of the clan and that only if LXC and the books survive, will the clan continue. By giving up both men, and pointing out the book situation, Su She has totally earned his expulsion. 

Lan Wangji Takes a Stand

Lan Wangji decides, for the first but not last time, to openly defy his uncle...and it's got nothing to do with Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji is a hero, who follows the dictates of his conscience. His conscience is extremely filial and extremely orthodox, but he’s got a growing open-minded streak.  This is going to cause a whole lot of conflicts for him over the next few years.

This time, however, he manages to skate out from under the whole disobedient, unfilial thing by citing Lan Yi's directive, which means Lan Qiren has to accept it because she's his predecessor and elder relative (She is probably not a literal ancestor, since she spent her life in a cave putting fucking headbands on fucking rabbits which probably didn’t leave time for having babies).

This is a pretty extraordinary moment for Lan Wangji and for Lan Qiren, because Lan Wangji just asserted his own form of authority to do the exact opposite of what Lan Qiren wanted, and Lan Qiren just sucked it up and let him.

It's also very different from western stories involving a holy McGuffin such as the Yin Iron. Lan Wangji's solution of "fuck it, just let the bad guys have it, it's not worth so many people dying for" is refreshing and surprising to me, a westerner raised on The One Ring, the Grail, the Death Star Plans, etc.

Lan Wangji steps out of the cave and uses a sword blast to save Su She, the ungrateful bastard, from getting stabbed by Wen Xu. Then he surrenders, and they break his leg to slow him down. This does not actually incapacitate him, because he is Lan Fucking Wangji, already a BAMF at like 17 years old. When they whack his leg, his chunk of Yin Iron falls out onto the ground.

That thing was in a magic bag of holding before. So...it just falls out when you whack him? If they whack him again will his guqin fall on the ground? What about candy?

Archery Practice at Lotus Pier

Meanwhile, back at Lotus Pier, the brothers are enjoying some quality time together before they head to the hostage-taking indoctrination.

Wei Wuxian is such a great cultivator that he can hit a distant target even when he jerks his bow upwards as he releases the arrow.

Jiang Cheng seems fairly pleased, and proud of his brother. He's competitive and fundamentally grumpy but not, at least here, a sore loser.

Club Ruohan

We go over to Da Club, where Wen Ruohan is yelling at Wen Qing for letting Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian go. He names them both, so they're becoming more and more known to their enemies. Which is not a good thing.

He menaces her with the zombie mosh crew, having them kill a dude in front of her and then saying her baby brother will be next in the circle of zombies if she tries any more stunts. Neither of them can imagine how much zombie ass her baby brother is going to kick, later in his (un)life.

Side note: What is up with WRH’s hair? Why bother pulling your hair up over your ears if you're going to leave an enormous curtain of it over your face? It's because he knows there's a wind machine next to his throne, isn’t it?

Leaving Lotus Pier

Jiang Cheng: when I ran off earlier in the year on my road trip you didn't pack a goddamn thing.

Wen Indoctrination

Is it even possible to stand next to this much active volcanic shit and not, uh, die? I live in the tornado part of the US so I don't know much about lava (yet. 2020 still has 2 months to go). But it seems like it would be hard to breathe the air. Also they appear to build houses on lava piles, which seems imprudent.  I say that even as someone who plays The Elder Scrolls Online, which is full of lava towns and nonsense like “ash farming.”

Nie Huaisang is adorable at all times, but particularly here, when he's so happy to see his friend who *didn't* fuck his gege and then abandon him without an explanation. 

Nie Huaisang: I'm so glad I can count on Wei-Xiong to be consistent and not vanish for months, or become a traumatized shell of his former self, or, like, horribly die.

Jin Zixuan isn't quite as happy to see Wei Wuxian.

Wen Chao enjoys the sound of his own voice way too much, and is malevolent and boring. On the plus side, he likes to stand with his hand stuck out in the air, which is fun for your resident photoshopper.

Nie Huaisang is so miserable every time he's holding a sword, or blade, or whichever we're supposed to call this. He's got his fan tucked into his belt, which is sweet. He is happy to give up his sword but don't you dare try to take his fan.

Meanwhile Wei Wuxian is worried about Lan Wangji, and Jiang Cheng isn't.

Lan Wangji shows up under guard, and takes his position at the front of the line, but without any extra disciples. The Wens let him change into snowy white robes after breaking his leg which will go well with arterial blood spray. He's focused and is determined not to interact with Wei Wuxian in this public context.

When I was little, I would sit near my best friend at church on Sunday, but not be allowed to talk to her until church was over, and it was exactly like this. She was good at churching and I was hyper and hated church. We are still best friends and these things are still true.

This interaction is like a thumbnail for the whole dynamic of these three boys: Lan Wangji outwardly ignoring Wei Wuxian while having many interior feelings about him; Wei Wuxian demanding attention and creating a bit of a scene, due to his very genuine caring; Jiang Cheng telling him to leave that boy alone for fuck's sake.

Lan Wangji: Stop trying to talk to me Wei Ying, I’m busy composing a song in my head about the two of us and our love for each other. 

[antebunny]

April 27: games

A sequel to archer and bridge, an identity porn extra of a modern cultivators Olympic sports AU.

Note: this is from the perspective of an NB OC named Elaine Chao who uses they/them pronouns. I did this because 1) the number of NB people I know has exponentially increased in the past year, and they all use they/them pronouns so I wanted to make myself familiar with using they/them pronouns to refer to a single person. I chose the name Elaine Chao because that’s the name of Mitch McConnell’s wife and I think I’m funny.

Elaine Chao is taking a class on cultivation, which is a new class offered at their university and also not very popular because cultivation is supposed to be a dead practice now just used as a sport. So it was expected to have like five students, max. The professor is an expert when it comes to the culture and history of xianxia, and now decided to also offer her skills and knowledge on cultivation, which she is also an expert on, despite having previously just taught the history/culture of that era. Then suddenly at the last minute, the class gets six new students. Initially, this isn’t the weird part. With an eleven person class, the students interact somewhat, but for a while all Elaine could tell you was their names.

Soon enough, their professor goes on a tirade about the international cultivation competition. She hates it because 1) it makes a mockery of the original purpose of cultivating, i.e. night hunts and defeating monsters oh and also war, and yet it still 2) puts the lives of the competitors in danger. Not in the way that sports usually do, in that there’s a risk for injury which can sometimes be permanent, but the competitors are all world-class athletes and generally don’t come to harm. But in an active, monsters-are-trying-to-kill-you sort of risk that has led to severe/permanent injuries recently, but no (recent) deaths. And the professor hates that the lives of these teenagers and young adults are so blatantly being put in danger for entertainment. She also hates how gamemasters pass their roles to their kids, who are usually competitors themselves, and so on. So the professor rants about the international tournament and these competitive cultivators and how much she dislikes it.

Then she mentions the last international competition, which everyone has heard of just because of how wrong it went.

The recent competitions have been rife with controversy anyway; there was that whole thing with gamemaster Wen Ruohan where he was favoring his sons and almost got the other competitors killed, and usually the other gamemasters would vote him out but Jiang Fengmian (and his wife) passed away from disease recently, and Jiang Cheng was his nominal replacement since it was assumed that Jiang Cheng would be too old for competition by the time Jiang Fengmian retired, and Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were skipping that year’s competition anyway because of jfm and yzy’s deaths, but then Jiang Cheng was dragged back to vote Wen Ruohan out. That all worked out in the end, because the Wens were just removed from the competition.

But last year’s competition was the final nail in the coffin. Basically, one of the gamemasters (Jin Guangshan) rigged the game for his own purposes. Since Jiang Cheng was still competing, Jin Guangyao was chosen as the new gamemaster. When only five contestants were left–the same five as the previous years–the monsters suddenly stopped dying and their time-out flares suddenly stopped working. This maybe would’ve worked except that Jin Zixuan was surreptitiously warned at the last moment that the game was rigged in his favor, and immediately told the others once he found them. Then they realized that they were stuck in the arena with monsters that wouldn’t die and no way to get out. They had a collective come-to-grace moment in which they realized “hey maybe putting our lives on the line like this isn’t healthy or normal just because it was what our parents did”. (Meanwhile, the other two grandmasters are panicking because their little brothers are out there jgs I’m going to wring your neck–) Then Wei Wuxian goes “actually I think I can control the monsters using ~demonic cultivation~” and the others go “it may be against the rules but we’ll back you up”. So that was last year’s competition. It was even more controversial because Wen Ning died as a consequence. His sister, Wen Qing, the best cultivating doctor in the world, who has treated all of the competitors in the past, literally hit the ceiling. She treated the five returning contestants and then promptly quit. That would be a problem because there’s no other doctors willing to treat all the cultivating contestants after a competition. But the bigger problem comes when Wei Wuxian, who should have gotten first place, gets banned from competitive cultivation for breaking the rules. They try to award first place to Lan Zhan, who promptly refuses and also vows to stop competitive cultivation because they banned Wei Wuxian. Then they try to award it to Jin Zixuan who refuses because he doesn’t ~deserve~ it and he’s wrecked with guilt that all the others went through this just because his dad wanted to make him win (and also wanted to kill the others). They go to Jiang Cheng who takes one look and goes “you’re kidding, right” and everyone knows that Jiang Cheng is suffering from an inferiority complex due to Wei Wuxian constantly upstaging him but Jiang Cheng is like “if you think I’m going to take a first place prize when I should’ve been fourth and you’re robbing not only the first three but also my brother by banning him from the game that almost killed all of us just because you think I have some stupid complex then you have another thing coming and also fuck you.”

So next year’s competition is canceled. Suddenly, these professional athletes have nothing to do. The five of them sit down and say “maybe we should learn more about our supposed profession” since the only reason they survived was because of Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation. Jiang Yanli brings up the university class, and the next thing they know, all six are enrolled in the class.

When Elaine overhears Wei Wuxian needle Jin Zixuan about something to which he responds “that was years ago!”, they can’t help but ask, “do you know each other?” And Wei Wuxian glances nervously at the professor and says “we’re…uh…family friends!” (That brick wall Lan Wangji is glaring at Wei Wuxian because he doesn’t like lying, but Elaine can’t tell because Lan Wangji is a brick wall. In more ways than one). Basically, while they didn’t have any intention of hiding, Wei Wuxian panics when he remembers how much the professor hates competitive cultivators, and everyone else gets sucked into his lies because of him.

And then it all comes spilling out: Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli are siblings, Nie Huaisang is high school friends with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian is dating Lan Wangji (and that much was already obvious from the very public pda), and Jin Zixuan is Jiang Yanli’s fiancé, and his family is friends with Jiang Yanli’s family, which is how he knows the siblings from earlier. It also comes out that all six of them aren’t regular students at the university, they’re just taking this class in particular. Their answers aren’t particularly enlightening, and Elaine doesn’t understand why they’re being so dodgy on the question. Well, if “dodgy” means Jiang Cheng snapping “none of your business” and Lan Wangji staring at you until you walk away nervously.

This is how Elaine gains perspective on their classmates. Jin Zixuan is an arrogant rich prick who can’t last a conversation without mentioning how much better he is than you. Jiang Cheng would be cool (and maybe even cute, Elaine notes) if he wasn’t perpetually angry, even with the people he supposedly got along with. He’s polite enough with strangers but any personal comments and he acts personally offended. Wei Wuxian is nice enough, but he’s also an annoying troublemaker who’s always late for class, and has the social skills of an agoraphobic lobster. He constantly inserts himself in conversations and gets on the professor’s nerves. Well, the professor appreciates the questions and knows that Wei Wuxian is actually interested and also really really smart, but. Nerves. Lan Zhan is handsome, and a model student, but that’s about all Elaine can say about him. He has the emotional capacity of an old shoe, and rarely offers more than one word answers, as if talking is beneath him. The only exception is Wei Wuxian, and that’s a whole other can of worms, because Elaine cannot for the life of them figure out how those two are dating each other. It’s clear they’re the most in-love couple to ever being in love, but that doesn’t answer the question why. And how. And what. Nie Huaisang is nice enough. He actually has some social tact and can hold a conversation, but he also has zero spine and isn’t interested in anything but art and procrastination. Elaine doesn’t understand why he’s even taking this class. He’s not in uni anyway, why is he here.

The only acceptable person is Jiang Yanli, and that’s because she’s a human person with actual feelings. She’s always nice, but knows that her siblings are not, and she has interests besides ??? and none. She actually goes to university and is majoring in political science, which is how Elaine learns that she is a debate champion, and already managing a business left to her by her recently deceased parents. Elaine brings up their parents once and then Jiang Cheng the aggressive angry grape starts yelling and Wei Wuxian turns downright vicious all cold and dark and Elaine never brings it up again. So Jiang Yanli is the only one that Elaine actually likes/considers a friend. The only thing is that Elaine cannot understand why she associates with the people that she does. Siblings are understandable, but why is she engaged to that rich brat Jin Zixuan? The terrifying thing is that Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian agree with Elaine and think Jiang Yanli could do better, and Elaine knows this because they’re so vocal about it. Like are they trying to ruin their sister’s engagement? Actually maybe they are.

So that’s Elaine’s university class experience.