#can't wait for him to read more

[cheerupqueerup]

My roommate reading Harrow the Ninth for the first time: I like when Harrow's second person narration throws in some Gideon-isms. It's fun to hear her voice still coming through.

Me:

[ID: A gif of Dennis from It's Always Sunny turning to look at the camera multiple times and raising his eyebrows. End ID]

[unclewaynemunson]

Pt2 to this post

'Is something wrong?' Nancy asks, not long after the two of them have taken their familiar spots on the hood of Steve's car. They're basking in what might be the last warm sunlight of the year, looking out over the quarry, at a safe distance from the edge.

It's become a tradition the two of them share, ever since they reconnected back in March. It calms them both, to just sit here and take in the view, no one around but each other. Nancy is one of the few people Steve can share a comfortable silence with: sometimes they sit here quietly for what feels like hours, side by side, listening to music or to nothing but the birds singing around them. But they also have their best conversations here: it's the place where Nancy entrusted him she wanted to break up with Jonathan; it's the place where they talked about their shared past and decided they would always love each other as friends; it's the place where they finally talked about Barbara in a way they couldn't when they were younger. It's where Nancy talked about the ghosts still haunting her and Steve talked about how lonely he sometimes felt.

Steve huffs. 'How did you guess?'

'When you frown, you always do it with your whole face,' Nancy notes. 'So it's hard to miss, really.'

Steve glances at her side profile. There's a serenity to her features that's still relatively new. It means she's healing, slowly learning how to be happy again. It means she stopped waiting for the end of the world and started believing in a real future again. It makes Steve proud of how far they both have come.

'I had a fight with Eddie,' he confesses. 'And with Dustin, I guess.'

'What happened?'

He sighs. 'It's complicated.'

'Wanna tell me about it?'

The look in her eyes is kind and inviting. Steve hesitates. He wants to, but he doesn't know if he can. It's a risk. It's scary.

But he can't imagine Nancy Wheeler ever being careless with his secrets. He can't imagine her judging him, can't imagine her being as small-minded as most people in this town.

He was planning on telling her anyway, because things had been going so well with Eddie lately and – no, he shouldn't think about that right now. But maybe it would actually be nice to talk about it with Nancy.

'So, um...' His throat feels tight and his hands are sweaty. 'I recently discovered some things about myself. I-' The words get stuck somewhere on the way to his mouth, and he clears his throat.

Nancy doesn't push, but only gives him an encouraging nod, waiting for him to find his voice again.

'I found out I like boys,' he finally manages to confess. 'And I need you to know that – that that doesn't mean that what I felt for you wasn't real. It was. I loved you, and now I fell in love with a boy. And-'

'Steve.' Nancy's hand suddenly covers his, causing him to finally jerk his head away from the view over the quarry, to focus on her face again instead.

Her eyes are wide, and she squeezes his hand.

'You don't have to explain yourself to me,' she tells him. 'We're good. But thank you for telling me. For trusting me with this.'

Steve heaves out a relieved sigh, and Nancy smiles; it's that genuine kind of smile which reveals all kinds of dimples and soft lines across her face.

'We might be more similar than you thought,' she tells him, a faint blush spreading over her cheeks.

'Really?' Her words make his breath catch in his throat. He squints at her, trying to see her in this new light. 'Are you saying what I think you're saying?'

She shrugs. 'I don't know. I'm not sure yet,' she admits. 'Still figuring things out.'

'Take your time, there's no rush,' he tells her. 'But...' He bumps his shoulder against hers. 'When you're done figuring it out, talk to me, okay?'

She nods. 'Okay.'

For a while, it's quiet between the two of them. Some kind of raptor circles high above them in the sky. They both follow it with their eyes until it disappears among the tree tops west of the quarry.

'Is it Eddie?'

Steve blinks dumbly a couple of times.

'Wha- what?'

'The guy you were talking about. The one you fell in love with. It's Eddie, isn't it?'

'Jesus, Wheeler, what kind of sorceress are you?' Steve exclaims.

Nancy laughs again. 'You're not being as subtle as you think,' she tells him. 'The two of you have been hooking up for a while now, haven't you?'

Steve huffs dramatically. 'This is unfair. You know everything; I can't even tell you my own secrets anymore!'

'So what happened?' Nancy asks. 'You said you had a fight with him?'

'It's fucking stupid,' he sighs. 'Dustin was getting way too excited about the fact that I was gonna be hanging out with you, so I told him I was seeing someone. Next thing I knew, he was telling Eddie all about how I was seeing a girl.' He waves his hands around to make annoyed air quotations. 'I wanted to tell Eddie it was a misunderstanding, but Dustin was there, so I couldn't out us just like that, and he looked so betrayed and heartbroken... He didn't wanna listen to me.'

Steve sighs; he still can't manage to forget that look in Eddie's eyes when Dustin delivered the big news. 'I wish I would've talked about what I felt for him earlier. I should've been honest when I had the chance, y'know. But I was afraid he wouldn't wanna label what we had, that he wouldn't feel the same way – and now we're in this whole mess. God, he must hate me right now, Nance.'

To his surprise, Nancy gives him an unexpected slap against his arm.

'Ouch, what the hell was that for?!'

'What are you even doing here with me, Steve? You should've gone after him, tell him how you feel!'

'I tried, obviously, but he didn't wanna listen to me!'

'So make him listen! You're in love with him, he obviously feels the same way about you, and you let him leave to wallow in a broken heart he doesn't even need to have!' She rolls her eyes and slides off the car, adding something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like an exasperated 'Boys!' before she pulls Steve off the car as well. 'C'mon, time to get your ass over to the trailer park. Right. Now,' she says through gritted teeth. And, well, Steve knows better than to argue with a determined - and truthfully quite terrifying - Nancy Wheeler.

Read the last part here Taglist: @withacapitalp @ultimatedreamer104 @irregular-child @jcmadgirl @estrellami-1 @myguiltyartpleasure @hallucinatedjosten @jaybren @thew1ldblueyonder @melodymeddler @alycatavatar @zoeweee @lolawonsstuff @fairy-princette @saramelaniemoon @phirex22 @krazyperson @xxsky-shockxx (I only put people on this list who explicitly asked to be tagged. That's really no problem, I love to do that so dw about asking, but I got a lot of relatively vague reactions to the previous post that i'm not gonna dissect and interpret, bc I don't wanna clog anyone's notes unwanted. So just to be clear: i consider it a huge compliment if anyone asks for a tag but please do it clearly if you do!)

[beesinspades]

why am i in witch hat atelier (this is the best thing that has ever happened to me) (please read witch hat atelier)

[skrunksthatwunk]

thinking about when guts sent a bunch of his men directly into zodd's meat grinder without even knowing demons like him existed. and that moment after the fight where casca runs to griffith unconscious on the floor and tells guts it's all his fault. and the time gambino tells him he's bad luck and should have died instead. and about how he tells griffith he cares about his men, and how casca doesn't seem to see it. and the time guts is thinking about casca telling him it's all his fault (after he got griffith hurt) and then griffith comes to him and says (like it's nothing) do i need to give a reason every time i come to save you? or whatever. like he's worth it. like he's worth dying for, and like it can be a choice people make because they value you. like he's a good luck charm, like griffith needs him to reach his goals, his full potential. like griffith is not enough to make it without him. like griffith finds out when guts leaves. fuckin.g gnawing someone else's legs off because i still need mine to run into traffic

[give-grian-rights]

can someone tell me why im being abnormal about a character i've barely touched the content of. like yay yippie i watched like 20 hours of you. there's fucking 80 years of content get me OUT OF HERE?

[dragons-and-art]

💙 Vinny through 2023 💙

[eight-pointed-star]

i was wondering why kabru is... the way he is and it turns out he absorbed some of the elves' lesbian powers via osmosis when he was a kid. good for him

[thelostgirl21]

I'm late to the party like you wouldn't believe, but I've got to say something, because I'm so upset!

Okay, unpopular opinion, I actually loved Jaskier's Season 3 hair!

Was it always perfectly styled? No. There were a few scenes where I personally thought it could have used a bit more volume, or a bit more volume in some places while a bit less in others; but, most or the time, I was more than fine with it, and thought it suited Jaskier well!

At times, I literally adored it!

Ex:

To me, those are moments where I thought Jaskier looked his best in the series! Loved the hair!

Then again, personally, I tend to prefer Joey's looks with his forehead cleared and his hair longer.

Like, this is I think one of the most gorgeous non-feral hairstyles I've ever seen on him:

(X)

This is an absolutely gorgeous man, and I personally prefer his hair styled like this than short.

(Note: I'm not saying he's not beautiful with short hair, too, simply stating personal preferences. Certain aesthetic choices are based on comfort, too, and he can 100% afford to sacrifice the "long haired look" for something that makes him feel more comfortable. He can rock plenty of different looks!)

Then, of course, there's the feral look that is just in its own category...

So why am I upset?

I've just found out that he didn't wear a wig in Season 3!

That Jaskier's Season 3 hair were simply Joey's own hair that he had decided to grow out.

And look, I'm fine with everyone having preferences!

That's not my issue. Having your own tastes and not being a fan of Joey's Season 3 hairstyle is not the issue at all!

There were posts simply mentioning that they hated that it looked so flat, when we could have been graced with something a bit more like this:

And I do get preferences when it comes to styling.

It's just that I recall how - since people assumed it was "an ugly wig" that had been forced on his head by the wig department, rather than what they considered "a bad hairstyle" - the comments on "Jaskier's hair" were at times downright nasty!

And I just gotta get out of my system that those of you that have been literally making fun of his "sudden 4-inches receeding hairline" (first I'll have you know I find receeding hairline pretty hot!), when it's kinda remained the same for 3 seasons (it's called BANGS people. Joey tends to wear those with his shorter haircuts! Look it up!), for example, really suck!

His hairline has always gone pretty far up on each side, even in some of his earlier work... Ex: Gopher in "Mount Pleasant" (2016):

Like he's got very thick hair that form a "V" shape at the top (my mom had that, but I didn't inherit it... And we've got tons of hair... Like, a lot! * ) and a pretty large forehead.

*

(That's me at 18, and then at 28 - before I brought them back to a lower back length - but my mom is the same in terms of thickness, she just has that V in the front I lack, and it never receeded any further in her life.)

And there would be no shame in having thin hair, or any form of baldness anyway!

So yeah! I remember sort of heavily ignoring all those "ugly wig" comments because I, too, had assumed it was a wig (turns out Joey's hair seem to be a bit like mine, and grow pretty fast), and at some point you choose your battles.

Did I think a bunch of you were immature assholes for needing to hate on that "ugly wig" so much? Yes. But you find those in any fandom!

Personally, I thought "the wig" was awesome!

But now, I kinda regret not having taken the time to be more supportive of Jaskier's Season's 3 hair given I actually like it...

Because that's just a (very sweet) human being's hair, that was styled in a way that a number of people didn't like.

Again, zero problem for those that thought it was badly styled, and that the look didn't suit Jaskier!

Critiquing what you find a "bad hairstyle" is no cause for shame!

But, for those of you that took it to the next level with all those "ugly wig" comments, you fucking suck, I sure hope you've since found out that you'd been openly ridiculing a fellow human being's real hair, that it makes you feel like complete pieces of shit, and that feeling like complete pieces of shit is going to help you learn from your mistakes, before you start attacking other people's personal physical features in the future!

"Well, I didn't know!"

Here's today's lesson:

When you don't know, please kindly shut up and assume the hair you see is the real thing!

Or critique the wig like you would a real hairstyle, asking yourself "Hmm... Is describing someone's real hair the way I do going to make me sound like a bully?"

Like I said, I'm aware I'm pretty late to the party, but the the kid in me that got heavily bullied in school over her own hair really needed to get it out of her system!

[volivolition]

suggestion do you have... any wants? like obviously you do but like? suggestion my guy my ourple boy. both the easiest and hardest to write. you need a skill to say something to move conversation along but it doesn't fit any skill in particular? about 80% of the time you can have suggestion say it and it will make sense. but like actually characterizing him... how do i define you dude... what makes your character tick... urgh. i dont get you yet. im trying to understand but you are difficult.

[finnpeach]

Hunt

(T/HRONE OF GLAS$ SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVEN'T READ PAST Q/UEEN OF SHADOW$ BE WARNED!)

My love for R/owan is boundless, and the series would be infinitely better if he was sick.

This is a multi-part fic of A/elin and R/owan training on a mountain and YEAH! HE HAS A COLD!

not much sneezing yet but it will come I promise

likes comments reblogs always loved and giggled over <3

****

Aelin stalks through the underbrush with lethal silence. Leaves covered with dew from the early morning mist streak across her face, dotting her cheeks. Her prey, a mountain hare the size of her head, nibbles on the sparse grass a few yards away.

She knocks her arrow, slipping in a breath. She can’t wait to see the look on Rowan’s face when she brings back a hare this size. Slowly, she pulls the bowstring back, kissing against her face. The hare turns, startled, breaths coming fast. Now or never–

“hh’rZzSHHh’uh!” 

Aelin gasps at the sound that echoes around the mountain. It cracks like a whip, scaring even the crows nesting in trees. The hare takes off and she desperately releases the arrow after her prey. The point finds its home in the thick trunk of a tree rather than the soft neck of the hare.

There goes breakfast. Her stomach growls pitifully. Seething, she rises from the brush and goes to retrieve her arrow. 

Five minutes later, Aelin stalks back to the makeshift camp she and Rowan had assembled the night before. The Fae prince had forced her to run from the castle to these distant mountains, shifting in and out of her Fae form to master control, where he then informed her they would be camping for a week out in the elements. And she was to hunt their every meal in between training.

It was a pathetic time, especially with the rain that has settled across the mountain. Damp and cold to her bones, Aelin approaches their campsite. Rowan, appearing much drier than she, sits by the fire she had sparked earlier that morning. He looks oddly run down, like he hadn’t slept much the night before.

Aelin is sure he hadn’t. The mountains were too misty to sleep outside without waking up damp, so they had packed just one tent to keep their baggage light. Lying beside Rowan, last night she had been the private audience to his tossing and turning, grumbling, and finally his snoring. 

“You fucking bastard. You scared off breakfast,” she hisses as she approaches, throwing her bow and bundle of arrows down by the tent. Rowan does not look up from the dagger he cleans in his hands.

“And how – snf! – pray tell, did I scare breakfast from here?” He grumbles. Aelin catches the way he sniffles thickly, his nostrils twitching up with the force of it.

She drops her satchel, full of only a bundle of pathetic berries.  “You sneezed.” She tries not to give in the warmth that pools in her lower stomach at the memory of the sound. It’s the first time she had ever heard him sneeze, and she was not disappointed. “For someone so keen on silence, I expected you’d know how to sneeze more quietly.”

Rowan doesn’t even grace her taunting with a reply, or a snarl. He just continues rubbing a cloth down the length of his dagger. Strange. He must be feeling really tired if he didn’t bother to punish her for such a remark. 

She sits down across from the fire, on a log they’d rolled over so they didn’t sit on wet grass. Feigning interest in destemming the berries she’d picked, she studies him through the crackling flames. 

His white hair is loose around his shoulders, creating a curtain that shields the dark tattoo running along his tan face. The tips of his Fae ears poke out just behind the white strands. After weeks of training with him, sleeping out in the elements beside him, she’s learned that he prefers to tie his hair up. It’s so rare to see him with it down.

“More hand to hand combat training today, or magic training?” She asks, breaking the silence that is only marred by the crackling flames.

Rowan sets the dagger aside. “Your job was to hunt. And since you still haven’t caught anything, your job is still to hunt.” He settles his sharp green eyes on her, brows set. If he didn’t piss her off so much, she might actually tremble under his gaze.

She raises her palms in defeat. “Fine, fine. But if you sneeze and scare off my prey again, I won’t be sharing the catch with you.” Even if she’d very much like for him to sneeze again, she’d rather eat first.

In one swoop, she picks up her bow and arrows and satchel again before setting off. With her Fae senses, she could scent a herd of deer in the southwest. Now that would show Rowan. Perhaps she’d bring back a buck, and spear him with its antlers.

As soon as she leaves the camp, nearly out of earshot, she hears the same thunderstrike from before. Perhaps Rowan had been waiting for her to leave.

“hhzjHSHHhieWw!”

A shiver runs down her spine as more startled crows caw in the trees.

****

Two hours later, Aelin returns with a small doe slung across her shoulders.

It’s mid afternoon. She had been lucky a herd was still grazing so late in the morning down by the clearing. She’d been even luckier that Rowan had either gotten his sneezing under control, or learned how to be quiet, because nothing had startled her catch this time.

“Lunch,” she declares to Rowan, dropping the deer to the grass. He hasn’t moved from his spot by the fire. “Is served.”

“It was supposed to be– snf! Breakfast,” he mutters, reaching the dagger at his side from earlier. His voice sounds dulled, like he’s congested.

Aelin rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s not like you helped. And I got us a catch to last us days.” She pats the stomach of the doe proudly. It isn’t very old – there’s still a sprinkling of fawn spots across her back. Aelin feels a twang of guilt for not singling out an older one.

Rowan pinches the bridge of his nose, breathing through his mouth. Aelin hardly has time to prepare before he jerks down towards his crotch, a light mist spraying across his trousers.

“hiHh–... yHhZzSHhhyuu!” A familiar, rushing heat spreads through Aelin’s gut. She swallows, watching as he rubs his nose on his wrist and glares up at her. Is he going to get mad at her for his sneezing?

Rowan chooses not to comment on it, something Aelin is secretly grateful for. “You were– snf! instructed to catch something small. We’re moving camp this afternoon.” He angles the pommel of the dagger towards her.

“What?!”

“Rain is coming tonight and will flood this area. I told you this morning. And now you’ve wasted a young doe’s life.”

A flame of rage flickers to life inside her chest. This is all his fault. “Well, I wouldn’t have wasted jack-shit if you hadn’t ruined my catch earl–”

“Aelin,” he growls, a no-nonsense sound. The tips of his canines poke past his lips. Aelin shuts up immediately. 

He stands, crossing the camp in two strides, and shoves the pommel of the knife against her stomach. She glares beneath his gaze. “You missed the catch because you did not act fast enough. Now you can either carry the doe across the mountain, or… hhH—!” His breath snags, eyes looking off into the distance for a split second. Aelin’s heart hammers in her chest.

He quickly recovers and sniffs again, much to her disappointment, and focuses his gaze on her. “Or you can leave it and realise you wasted a young animal’s life for your pride.” 

Before she can retort, he turns on his heel and she offers a middle finger to his large, muscular back. 

As if sensing her, he says over his shoulder, “And– sNf!– pack up the tent.”

[petricorah]

nine (9) people u'd like 2 know better

tagged by @izzac and @chiptrillino thank you both! <3

three ships: zukka (surprise suprise) korrasami, and bubbline

first ever ship: starfire and robin from teen titans! (also wally and jinx...i rewatched that episode so much as a kid)

last song: Hey I Don't Work Here by Tom Cardy

currently reading: Blue Period and She Who Became the Sun (so I can understand ash-and-starlight's art...) and Six of Crows

currently watching: I'm rewatching doctor who. I've been feeling so nostalgic lately...

currently consuming: apple cider

currently craving: anything sweet

current obsessions: Baldur's gate. I've finally gotten on a roll of accomplishing things in the game and have been playing it all weekend and then listening to the soundtrack during work. it makes work sound very epic...

currently up to: commissions, drawing some angsty zukka comics, and some bg3 fanart (aka spending forever failing to draw astarion)

aand tagging: @chief-boomerang @frstcorinthians @bisexuallsokka @ash-and-starlight @icrowler and anyone else who wants to do it!!

[heliosphere-underthesky]

Sirius A, the Wolf Prince! He is a main sequence star in the Canis Major constellation. Also known as the Dog Star.

Art made: (November 2023, April 2019, March 2015)

About Sirius: Space.com article | ESA image

[sysig]

Looking his very best, as much as he can anyhow (Patreon)

[enypneon]

murtagh is SCOTTISH??????

[lgbtlunaverse]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is leaving out two crucial things, though.

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

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

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

Which is the second point: change in status

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tiny detail: these are actually not Nie cultivators

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[aishterukii]

Truly the most eloquent individual ever