#er-ge you...

[disgracefulthings]

Lan Wangji: Why can't I have a morally questionable boyfriend when you do?

Lan Xichen: A-Yao isn't morally questionable!!

Lan Wangji: He's literally dragging his sworn brother's corpse right now

Lan Xichen, noticing Jin Guangyao: A-Yao, did you kill da-ge?

Jin Guangyao, dragging Nie Mingjue's corpse: Of course not er-ge, he's just sleeping

Lan Xichen: See Wangji, he's just sleeping

Lan Wangji: ( ,,⩌'︿'⩌,,)

[yaoi-yaoieverywhere]

"Shen Jiu looks like/is an incarnation of Shen Yuan's older brother" But have you considered his da-ge could be Mobei Jun. have you considered this little sassy nerd boy only got this far bc of his 6'5" jacked up frigid bastard of an older brother who was loyal to a fault. have you considered SQH once saw this man across the room and never stopped thinking about him, leading to PIDW existing. Have you-

[confuzing]

Two months after Shen Jiu joins the sect he's finally forced to go get a full medical exam. It's remarkably tolerable- but they keep asking if he has any siblings and don't seem to be taking 'no' for an answer. Finally he's like "if I do I've never met them!" And fuck if the healers don't bring in an older boy with Shen Jiu's exact same face.

Chen Xuan is an inner disciple specializing in spiritual veins. He's from a middle class merchant family, but admits he doesn't look much like either of his parents.

Eventually they take a magical DNA test and yep, they are brothers.

Both of them are like, "this doesn't really change anything, I don't know you."

But they meet for tea frequently, and eventually after they become genuine friends Chen Xuan coaxes Shen Jiu to let him work on his spiritual veins. (Shen Jiu might start going to hide in his brother's room when he can't sleep but they never talk about that.)

Life goes on and not much is different until one year disciple selection gets Real Weird. Shen Qingqiu is just trying to snipe a promising kid from Liu Qingge - but then Ming Fan is like, "Shizun that other little boy bit me when I tried to separate them"

That other little boy, is of course Shen Yuan, who has his same face again. SQQ hadn't noticed him at first, he kept his head down. He's mentally cursing his slut-dad when Yue Qingyuan steps in and scoops up both boys despite his protests. (He noticed the mini Shen immediately)

Chen Xuan tells him later they do indeed have a new didi, just one thank the gods. If SQQ was related to both those little brats he'd kill someone.

He doesn't see either boy often but Shen Yuan has it out for him for some reason. He'll feel eyes on him and turn and there's that little street rat, glaring at him.

Again life goes on, once the boy's a little more settled he's invited to the brotherly tea meet ups. He and Shen Qingqiu reluctantly become fond of each other. (Chen Xuan's plan worked perfectly.)

Until Shen Yuan comes back from his first night hunt and crashes tea with a little baby girl. (Also Binghe comes too.)

SQQ rightfully asks why SY stole a baby and SY informs then that 1) the demon they killed had her in a sack so she was free not stolen and 2) "It's Meimei."

The two older men have sudden violent flashbacks to their past lives as Shen Yuan's Da-ge and Er-ge. Shen Yuan, of course has always remembered. After they recover from the shock they do another magical DNA test. The baby is definitely Meimei.

[oyeicher]

San Pang? I have to leave for work. I'll be back tomorrow at noon. I need you to take over for me.

Unknown Episode 10 [for @lurkingshan]

[nebulathunderwave-art]

Birthday wishes to Zewu-jun from Lanling

(Birthday wishes to Er-Ge from A-Yao)

8.10.2024 | Happy birthday Lan Xichen! 💙☁️

[oh-dameron]

Lan Xichen and Qin Su had quite a bit in common when it came to Jin Guangyao:

- First met JGY when they were in peril and he came to the rescue,

- Notably kind, beautiful, and good-natured,

- Did not place value on his origin or look down on him for his mother's profession,

- Were vocal in their support of him socially.

Which makes me think that we were robbed of maybe the greatest potential JGY partnership: Wen Ning.

Wen Ning: so ride-or-die that actually dying did not stop him from continuing to be ride-or-die. Wen Ning, presumably in quite the tenuous situation in Nightless City after the Jiang heir disappeared under suspicious circumstances, right when Meng Yao was working is way into Wen Ruohan's inner circle. Wen Ning, the sweetest cinnamon roll.

Slight canon divergence where Wen Qing missed one single opportunity to send Wen Ning out of Nightless City for a while, Wen Ning gets into juuust enough trouble, Meng Yao has the keys to the cell... one flash of Wen Ning's bambi eyes and he would have been a goner.

[dailyayao]

[jin-zixun]

friendly reminder that there is a canonical "su she vs like nearly the entire jianghu including wangxian" and the nearly the entire jianghu including wangxian side was the one that needed a deus ex machina to pull out a tie.

and his losses to lwj and fc!nmj only came after all that power was exhausted doing all that and teleporting and yet even then his last loss to fc!nmj is basically because he has *too much* spiritual energy.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

was watching a stream where chat was arguing whether x/ch/ng or s/ngch/ng was the better ship... couldn't help but think of that meme that goes "they having a mid off"

i am not familiar with this meme but just judging by the vibes it extrudes into my mind, it fits lol

that said at least sangch3ng is based on a preexisting relationship between jc and nhs. like, their lan summer camp hijinks are very funny, esp in cql, so i can see why some people would enjoy it as a ship! it is just very much not my thing.

[daily-suyao]

[3cosmicfrogs]

3zun cannibalism comic you started that apparently looks bad <- I understand but also I'm sorry such an inspired juicy comic can only look good look glorious look fuckable I desire it carnally I am awaiting eagerly hands folded like this 👀 something something Hannibal in a flowercrown.jpg or whatever but also yeah.

on an intellectual level youre absolutely correct. it's a great concept thats why i'm trying to draw it.

but i made some pretty big mistakes right when i started and instead of going back to its foundations and fixing the damn thing, i just kept fiddling with it and now its rotting away in shame.

i cant overstate how unhappy i am with it. it does NOT spark joy!

thank you for ur encouragement, beloved Mutual and fellow 3zun academic, but i have stepped away from it for the time being, and will try again when i can start fresh.

[mathmusicreading]

Xiè Lián: My surname is Xiè, my first name is Lián. Huā Chéng: You can call me your third husband. Xiè Lián: What happened to my first two husbands?!

I learned Huā Chéng was having Xiè Lián call him "husband" from Ty the Canasian on Kictor's YouTube, I found this when I was trying to corroborate the linguistics, and I indulged and bought the official Seven Seas Entertainment (translator and editor are on Tumblr!) English translations of the books so here's further confirmation from Volume 1:

ETA:

I made this post private because I was unhappy with it (misspelling/misformatting Wúmíng, knowing I wouldn't have good reach for larger and less biased sample size even if I could have tagged better for the fandoms and characters if Tumblr organized by more than the first five tags), but I'm making it public again since it finished and so did the similar poll that fun-mxtx-polls was kind enough to make for me.

Not to bias towards the first option, just to explain it, the first option and why I wanted this poll come from the naming pattern trivia for MXTX's love interests/male leads/gongs, which I think you can best read on Huā Chéng's page on the Heaven Official's Blessing/Tiān Guān Cì Fú wikia. I'm just using that as my citation given:

I'm not sure if MXTX has discussed this meta in-joke somewhere and if so, where.

The SSE Glossary: Terminology note (all volumes of all three MXTX novels) only explains the second and third gongs, and implies MXTX is doing this purposefully. Lán Wàngjī's wikia page explains only the three published gongs, and implies this started from fandom phenomena creating a proto-stage pattern (if you subscribe to "one is chance, two is coincidence, three is a pattern"). Huā Chéng's page linked above is the odd man out and so probably incorrect about Lán-èr-gē vs. Lán-èr-gēge, but it goes above and beyond by explaining the fourth gong, and it uses the most neutral language regarding this trivia.

I think citation is unnecessary for "gē" (哥 | 哥) meaning "big brother" and in certain contexts having the connotation or meaning of "eldest brother" (admittedly my unverified inference), "èr" (二 | 二) meaning "two", and "sān" (三 | 三) meaning "three".

I actually like so much because I like to think if it could use more wordplay and less literalism. Please forgive me for being a poor reader not remembering exactly, not buying the TGCF raws yet, not being able to buy the SVSSS and MDZS raws, and only being able to find old fan translations/interpretations of MXTX's fourth novel preview, but let me explain:

I believe Luò Bīnghé isn't being called "Luò Bīnghé-gē" (or rather "Bīng-gē" since I think? it's more usual to use the suffix with the single/first character of a person's given name, not with their full name, especially when the full name is three (or more? some of my reading has mentioned two-character last names but I didn't find if culture was strict about then making the given name be only one character) characters) for the usual reasons to address someone with "gē", but actually the PIDW!Luò Bīnghé is being called Luò Bīnggē (or "Bīng-gē") because he's more aggressive than canon/SVSSS!Luò Bīnggē who when being differentiated gets called Luò Bīngmèi (or "Bīng-mèi"), and I love that "very fitting reasoning for the naming, not strictly literal and not so bound to literal".

Then with Lán Wàngjī, I see the opportunity that his nickname could have used the natural naming of "erhua is used as a diminutive suffix", and the "er" would have been homophonous with "èr" (二 | 二) for "two" for him being the second gong, and homophonous to the potential "proper address for him as the second Lán son/brother".

In the most literal sense, you'll notice that the gongs so far have had their nicknames be using "(big) brother" and Huā Chéng's uses láng (郎 | 郎) "son" (his stated meaning, although it can also mean "man" and "husband" and the latter is how we can interpret he wanted it to be when coming from Xiè Lián). There's nothing wrong with that and the numbers are perfectly probable, and would still be so as they grow, but also they could feel more like "contrived" coincidence, which is part of my wanting to get away from literalism a little bit, not just my loving clever wordplay. With Huā Chéng, I don't have a homophone I can use for punning like with Lán Wàngjī, or really the "cultural language use where literal suffixes/honorifics get used figuratively for XYZ purposes", but I can make it fit with character interpretation. To me, Sān Láng doesn't have to be "Third Son" because "he has two older brothers" and in fact we aren't sure that he was telling the truth about that—instead, I think Huā Chéng could be being clever with not just getting Xiè Lián to call him (Third/surname "Three") Husband but in saying his name is "Third Man" because this is the third alias he gives Xiè Lián. (Some additional feels this gives me: It's like he's saying he's the same person Xiè Lián met before, that they shared all of that experience and it mattered, that he's the final form of that person wanting to be with Xiè Lián, that he's like a fairy-tale character with many names and forms and a true name and form and all along there was a trick or thread to follow in knowing and identifying him.) It just works out so perfectly because of the third way he introduces himself to Xiè Lián matching him being the third gong, and also the fairy-tale significant number of "three".

Finally, with the fourth gong, I've looked at Suika's TGCF Afterword translation, a NovelUpdates MDZS spoilers forum post by K.san crossposted to the Grim Reapers Have No Days Off spoilers forum by alexfilia, a reply to this post in r/tianguancifu by u/chenmochou, and also this post in r/tianguancifu by u/Loud_Daikon6167 which cites a TikTok I can't see either because of TikTok's thing about opening to a random page/the homepage or I assume the TikTok being removed or locked. Given the first NovelUpdates post maybe having more of a direct translation compared to the first Reddit post, it's still not definitive to me whether this is "actually more of a fandom thing, with MXTX acknowledging and participating in it enough to help make it possible" or it's "MXTX doing this on purpose with her name choices and character traits, whether she meant to have the pattern from the start or later, and yes could have been influenced by fandom" because I think "Other: 四少" is probably about the male lead(s) compared to it following "Protagonist: the uke's name is not determined yet" so it doesn't seem like the fandom came up with a nickname out of whole cloth. "Four young masters" is perfectly probable and could be equally reasonable, and "four ikemen" could even follow in reasonability; in fact it could be more likely and realistic since this is a modern setting, which would have different use of "young master" to me, and because we believe the gong to be the regular human and the shou to be the grim reaper. But for the wordplay, I would have liked it if the gong were the grim reaper and the "four theme naming" came from the famous "sì" (四 | 四) meaning "four" is homophonous with "sǐ" (死 | 死) meaning "die/death" and the latter being used in the Chinese for "grim reaper"/"death god".

[lilnasxvevo]

Actually I’ve slightly revised my earlier opinions on the death of Nie Mingjue. I think if someone (Mingjue) tries to kill you (Jin Guangyao) more than once and no one will do anything about it I actually think it is at least sort of permissible to kill that guy, even if you’re slowly and painfully poisoning him with the “medicine” he’s trusting you to administer to him in a breathtakingly cruel betrayal of your sworn brotherhood.

If someone much stronger than you keeps trying to kill you, it seems sort of common sense that he’s going to succeed eventually, you know? You’ve got to beat him to the punch or else you’re just baring your throat to a knife and waiting patiently for it to make the fatal cut.

I get that JGY killed him at his father’s behest but it becomes much more sympathetic to me when I consider that by this point JGY was probably legitimately afraid of Nie Mingjue for pretty good reasons.

[wovenstarlight]

what is it about needing a specific piece of information that makes all relevant personal history and awareness of the subject leave your mind instantly

[sunriseverse]

you know what i would be a horrible mdzs transmigrator if i became jgy because i Am Not In Any Way attracted to lxc but i am AWARE original!jgy is so i would be trying to run damage control and shit and lxc would be like. hm. a yao hasn’t asked me to play a xiao solo for him. clearly he is being possessed by a malevolent spirit. and you know what, given my fucked up brain chemistry, i would be wholly inclined to agree with him.