#i think like. no matter who was topping lwj would want wwx to keep going. and he would because they're kinky losers and everyday

[miixz]

I posted 1.192 times in 2022

They were 1.192 more posts than in 2021!

93 posts created (8%)

1.099 posts reblogged (92%)

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I tagged 588 of my posts in 2022

#mdzs - 425 posts

#wangxian - 244 posts

#wei wuxian - 210 posts

#lan wangji - 184 posts

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Longest Tag: 139 characters

#he isn't insecure really and the food thing started as like…you know in the book when he flirts with lwj and he reacts and he says he's hap

My Top Posts In 2022:

#5

I plan to elaborate on this in the future but... Rereading the Yiling date chapter one thing that occurs to me is how even then WWX did know LWJ was a lot more trustworthy than JC, he just didn't have the opportunity to see things from a distance and figure it out.

His reactions to them are so different, and the contrast between their interactions is obvious. JC doesn't interact with the Wens and WWX doesn't encourage it because he knows JC and he's not expecting good things from him. He sends Wen Yuan away when he comes over, they fight, its that whole mess.

Meanwhile LWJ says one thing and WWX goes "Oh okay, we're good, you're treating me the same. Hey, wanna go on a date? I'll pay."

He trusts LWJ to help him fight, he doesn't mind being manhandled into flying on bichen, he just settles into working with him and though there's still some tension between them, if given the opportunity, he wants to work with LWJ.

Where JC only makes WWX feel stressed, LWJ is yet again there to contrast it by making him feel happy and safe (even if there's a few bumps along the way).

341 notes - posted in August 16, 2022

#4

"In terms of running wild, Wei WuXian was definitely a master. In the past, if he wanted to run wild, he would have to keep his status in mind, but now, he was a lunatic anyways, which meant that he could do whatever he wanted to, whichever way he wanted."

Started thinking about this paragraph on my mdzs reread, cause I think it shows exactly what tends to bother me with gremlin WWX takes, which is that he did have fun playing around and messing with people, but he was never unaware of his standing and what the implications were on his social relationships.

He was never unaware or uncaring of consequences, to portray him as someone who needs to be kept in check not to cause shame or something of the like just doesn't fit.

496 notes - posted in June 9, 2022

#3

I was rereading some scenes from the novel to check something for my fics and here's something cute I noticed. Wei Wuxian uses the concept of "girls" flirting with Lan Wangji multiple to justify his thoughts on him. Whenever he's negative towards him, Wei Wuxian's thoughts will go to "a girl flirting with you wouldn't like this behaviour" not once thinking that the situation would be different for Lan Wangji then, meaning the girl in question fits into the same place as Wei Wuxian is right now and these interactions are equal.

When he was still in Yunmeng, there were a lot of girls who envied that he could come and study with Lan WangJi. They said that each generation was full of nice-looking men, especially the brothers part of the Two Jades in the current generation. Before this, Wei WuXian never had the chance to carefully examine the front of his face. Now that he had a look at it, he started to think random thoughts, He looks quite nice indeed. Yet, if only those girls could come and see him with their own eyes. Looking as bitter as if everyone had offended him or his parents died, it wouldn’t matter no matter how nice his face looks.

Ah yes, girls would be very upset that Lan Wangji isn't smiling at them, this is obviously not a feeling Wei Wuxian is having right now.

As he showed off and flirted on the side, Lan WangJi was staring straight ahead, appearing quite virtuous. Wei WuXian smugly tossed the toquat in his hand, and suddenly pointed at him, “Sisters, do you think that he looks handsome?” Lan WangJi didn’t expect Wei WuXian to suddenly talk about him at all. Just as he was unsure of how to respond, the women on the river spoke in harmony, “Even more handsome!” Amid this, there seemed to be the laughter of a few men.

Even while flirting with girls himself Wei Wuxian has to stop and point out how handsome Lan Wangji is.

Lan WangJi, “No.” Wei WuXian, “Don’t answer everything with negative words. You sound so uncaring; girls won’t like it."

He was talking about how they could meet pretty girls in this scene, but it's clear that he's the one displeased that Lan Wangji is rejecting him.

It's such a small thing, I don't think he's aware of it, but it's pretty cute how obvious his crush is to the reader. The cloud recesses study arc is so adorable to read.

600 notes - posted in May 10, 2022

#2

I actually love the way Lan Wangji doesn't pursue Wei Wuxian when they meet again(?)

He's ready to play with him, to one up him in his own games and surprise Wei Wuxian that he's playing along at all. I think that's what picking him up was, and getting him into bed, and all that back and forth they had. Wangxian both like to tease. But Lan Wangji's side always feels like he's trying a little less to flirt and I see why some people would be disappointed with that, but I really like it.

It makes sense why he'd think Wei Wuxian wouldn't reciprocate his feelings and they had so many communication problems in his past life, it comes across to me as Lan Wangji just wanting to be there for him this time, as a friend or in whichever other way Wei Wuxian will take him. Romance is the ideal of course but not the requirement. It's a very selfless type of love, where he just wants Wei Wuxian safe and happy, and being there for him at all seems to come as a bonus that has Lan Wangji really really happy regardless or how much of that he gets.

Which also seems to comfort Wei Wuxian, that Lan Wangji has no ulterior motives keeping him by his side, he just likes him and wants to be there, that's all. As he slowly opens up to the idea of them being together, you get to see Lan Wangji respond, because he does want this if he can have it, but one of the most important parts of getting here is that he wasn't pushing for it. He was there giving himself and his love for Wei Wuxian without asking for anything back, and in turn Wei Wuxian fell (deeper) in love with him.

They're so sweet 🥺

I've been wanting to write a meta about this for a while (I will eventually!) but I've been sort of low energy, so it'll have to be rambly posts instead for now...

879 notes - posted in August 10, 2022

Meu post nº 1 de 2022

Cannot get over the amount of the impact Wei Wuxian had on the cultivation world as a scholar.

As for why they looked familiar… How could they have not come across as familiar? The creator of Phantom Attraction Flags was none other than the YiLing Patriarch!

It seemed like that, although the cultivation world hated him on the surface, they still used the the inventions that he came up with.

There's obviously his inventions.

But also,

The cultivation world had a strict definition for the category of “ferocious ghosts”—they had to kill at least one person a month and continue the behaviour for at least three months. The criterion was set by Wei WuXian himself, and it was probably still being used. He was the best at dealing with this kind.

The fact that he created the criteria???

They use his ideas so much and so often, he had such a present and lasting impact on the world, and it makes the cultivation world's hypocrisy even more glaring considering they curse his name to that day but he's also their most trusted source for so many things.

1.064 notes - posted in June 13, 2022

Veja a sua Retrospectiva 2022 →

[chenqingssuibian]

i bet wangxian have to rigidly schedule their sexcapades because if they start too late at night lan wangji will simply pass out at 9:00 no matter what he was doing

[drwcn]

NEW!

《 Without Envy 》 storyboard 11 - concubine/sleeper agent!wwx & prince!lwj

Other snippets and storyboards can be found on [Master List]

Lan Wangji knew his Uncle and the imperial court and the elders of the royal family were never going to be okay with him making Wei Wuxian one of his concubines. The servant status is one thing, but that's not the crux of the issue. The issue is that there's already a rumour circulating about how WWX is a wily fox whose sole purpose in life is to seduce and befuddle the prince. Xue Yang: quite a reputation you've cultivated for yourself. WWX: *kuzo's meme*.........ah yes, everything is all coming together now.

Lan Wangji is a smart boy though. He knows how to get what he wants. As Wei Ying inched towards full recovery from his whipping, the autumn hunt is upon them.

The autumn hunt in the royal hunts ground was a competition. Anyone invited could compete if they chose to, and of Lan Wangji's household, Jin Ziyan, Luo Qingyang and himself were in attendance. Mianmian, being his concubine and a woman, had two escorts/chaperones accompanying her for propriety, but flashed him dazzling smiles of gratitude upon her horse.

"I'm very grateful, dianxia, for your allowing this indulgence." "Of course," replied Lan Wangji from his saddle. "My Luo-furen should have what she wants." "Dianxia, ce-wangfu." Qin Su approached them and curtsied in proper form. "I wish you all best of luck in the hunt." Then to Mianmian, she said quietly, "Be careful, Qingyang." Jin Ziyan paid the two women no mind, but Lan Wangji saw the hand Qin Su had clandestinely wrapped around one of Mianmian's booted ankles. Oh...well, this is certainly a positive development.

The rest of the noble women not participating in the hunt rested in their tented pavilions, with Meng Yao as their hostess. They drank tea and ate sweets and enjoyed their free time to themselves. Meng Yao noted Wei Wuxian's absence from Jiang Yanli's side, as did several other noble women, but Jiang Yanli only smiled and said, "A-Xian has been living at my father's manor for several years and is an excellent marksman. Dianxia thought it a waste if he were kept from participating."

The truth of the matter is like this: when Wei Wuxian cheated and lied his way into Jiang-fu, he'd told Jiang Fengmian and his family that he'd lived most of his life by the charity of a hunter's family, and so had trained to hunt game in the wild. After the hunter's family died of some infectious illness that plagued the region, Wei Wuxian had supposed made his way into the city and found employment as a shop boy. He couldn't reveal that he'd been trained in martial arts, but there is no need to hide his skill as an archer. At first, it was so he could use archery as a common interest to get close to Jiang Fengmian's son Jiang Cheng, but Wei Wuxian soon realized that it could also be used as a way for Lan Wangji to cultivate further interest.

"Lan Zhan..." Wei Wuxian stroked the snout of Lan Wangji's beloved ferghana horse and grinned. "You really want me to ride him?" "Mn." "You...won't be mad then, if I win?" Wei Wuxian's grin turned slightly wicked. "If I beat you?" Lan Wangji's brow twitched with interest, "Not at all. That's rather what I'm counting on." "Yeah? And why is that?" "Because while I can claim victory with the sword -" "- Very modest, you." Wei Wuxian teased, grinning, which earned him a subtle little glare. "- amongst my cousins, my marksmanship is not unrivalled. You may have a greater chance of winning with him. Huangxiong promised that whoever wins today's hunt will be granted one wish." A wish? Wei Wuxian mulled over this information. His own mission turned and circled in his mind. If I could but gain access to... ... Of course, Wei Wuxian glanced at the prince and the saw the light in his eyes. Lan Wangji is probably thinking of something entirely different.

And so it was inevitable that went the count of the hunt came in, Wei Wuxian's name was at the top. Lan Qiren's little mustache just about flew off his face the way he scrunched it up in displeasure.

Gentries, nobles, dukes and princes watched with envy and shock as a servant came forth to accept the Emperor's reward.

"Jiang-xiong," Nie Huaisang leaned close to Jiang Cheng while they watched from the sidelines as Wei Wuxian bowed before the Emperor. "Why do you look so smug?" Jiang Cheng played with the end of an arrow with an air of mock innocence, "I don't know what you're talking about?" Nie Huaisang pulled at the leather of his riding attire in discomfort - this was so not his style - and tsked, "I know you, Jiang-xiong, you're not subtle. What did you do?" "I was the one who told Lan Wangi that Wei Wuxian is an excellent archer when I went to visit Hanguang-fu." Nie Huaisang understood instantly, "Oh....oh I see..." "What? Don't judge me! You know what they did to him. String up like some unruly animal and whipped. I never agreed with my mother's plan to send him along with my sister anyway. Wei Wuxian may be lowborn but..." Jiang Cheng scowled. "He's too good for them. For Lan Wangji. He's clearly not going to do right by Wei Wuxian. I won't stand to see a perfectly good man wasted as some prissy prince's concubine instead of being where he could put his real skills to use." "Shhhhh, ancestors, Jiang-xiong, keep your voice down! Words like that are a great dishonor against bixia, you'll lose your head!" Jiang Cheng shrugged.

Xue Yang *at a later times*: so lemme get this straight, you won the Hunt, and then Lan Xichen asked you what you want as reward - WWX - as a good little servant I said "I want for nothing that wangye and Jiang-zhuzi hasn't already provided me" - XY *rolls his eyes* Right. And then Jiang Wanyin came out of nowhere and said - "陛下，魏婴乃微臣之家生子，是前管家魏长泽 的独子， 因幼年时父母过世一直遗留市井。上天庇佑，几年前父亲将他巡回。魏婴为人端正淳厚，虽未上过学堂，但头脑机智。陛下也看到了，他弓发出众， 是。。。如能加强训练，以后必会为我姑苏所用 - " Bixia, Wei Ying is this subject's home-born servant, the only son of our previous head of staff Wei Changze. Due to the unfortunate passing of his parents in his youth, he has been getting by doing odd jobs in the capital. Heavens be willing, Father was able to find him after these many years and brought him home. Wei Ying is kind and righteous; though never have been taught by scholars, he is sharp of mind. As bixia has seen, he is a great marksmanship, is ... If he could be granted proper training, he would be a great asset for Gusu in the future. - And what a waste it would be if you were left to twindle away within the confines of a harem. I bet Lan Wangji just loved that. The balls on Jiang Wangyin - I do love his style. WWX You're the only one. Jiang-shushu just about had a heart attack when Jiang Cheng dissed Lan Wangji in public. Madam Yu nearly popped a vein too. XY: Yeah well, he's got a point. You may be Jiang Yanli's companion, but you're not Lan Wangji's concubine, you're just a servant with a skill. Honestly why shouldn't they put you to better use than waiting to maybe spread your legs for a prince who might just as easily toss you aside after the newness fades. WWX *slaps him up the head* Rascal! I'm your shixiong. Don't be so rude. Anyways, Lan Zhan, he - he was willing to let me go. I think he loves me you know - XY: He what now - WWX: He said - Lan Wangji came to kneel beside Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin and bowed to his royal brother, "Huangxiong, Wei Ying is the peijia of my Jiang-furen, a servant of my manor. I... I long knew he is an excellent marksman and should have submitted his candidacy for the ranks but -" Lan Wangji looked at him then, eyes huge with something unreadable. "Jiang-xiao-jiangjun is right. Wei Ying is good, his mind is bright. He would be more suited to militia than...than within the walls of the inner court." "Wangye, have you....have you grown tired of Wei Ying -" "Wei Ying, no -" XY: Oh barf. So please tell me you chose to go to bingbu (ministry of war). WWX: Going to bingbu was never the assignment. If yifu wanted me in the ministry of war, I would've infiltrated them from the start. I refused. And it had the intended effect. "No?" Lan Xichen leaned forward curiously. "Joining the ranks will elevate your rank to that of a subject of the imperial government, and if you are truly as skilled and talented as my brother and Jiang-xiao-jiangjun say, you may rise yet to stand in my court as an officer of the imperial military. You will have your own commission, your own manor, marry, have children - all things which will be forbidden to you if you remain as you are now. As you are male, you cannot provide for Hanguang-fu any offspring, and your low-born status has precluded you from the position of consort or even vice-consort. Have you considered your options carefully? " "I understand bixia, and my decision is made. Nothing would please me more than to stay by wangye's side. I regret nothing." XY: >_> And A this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact you're increasingly horny for Lan Wangji? WWX: Of course not. Because of Lan Qiren, I couldn't advance in Hanguang-fu. But now that Lan Xichen had given me his royal decree, I am Lan Wangji's sanctioned mianshou. XY: *insert eye emoji* So...y'all fucked? WWX *wistful, thinking about the night he spent at the autumn palace after the hunt* : We did, you pervert. Ya happy now? *WWX sighed* But I know who we are and what I must do. Yifu needs me by Lan Wangji's side, for what reasons I do not yet know. No matter how he and I are now... one day it will

all end. XY: *stares into the camera like he's on the office*

Note: yifu = Wen Ruohan, WWX's adoptive father.

[potteresque-ire]

More ask answer about Word of Honour (山河令, WoH) and the so-called “Dangai 101 phenomenon” under the cut ~ with all the M/M relationships shown on screen, does it mean improved acceptance / safety for the c-queer community?

Due to its length (sorry!), I’ve divided the answer into 3 parts: 1) Background 2) Excerpts from the op-eds 3) Thoughts This post is PART 1 ❤️. As usual, please consider the opinions expressed as your local friendly fandomer sharing what they’ve learned, and should, in no ways, be viewed as necessarily true. :)

(TW: homophobic, hateful speech quoted)

After WoH had started airing, I had waited for one of China’s state-controlled media to publish opinion pieces about the show. Specifically, I’d like to know ~ what is the administration’s current take on Dangai  (耽改), as a genre? How does it characterise the closeness of the same-sex leads—the closeness that is suppressed when the original IP, of the genre Danmei (耽美) was converted for visual media presentation?

This is important, as China is a country where the government’s attitude becomes the official public attitude. The state opinion pieces will be quoted and parroted, especially if they come from heavy-weight sources (state-controlled media also have their importance/influence hierarchy). Production of the upcoming Dangai dramas will adjust their scripts accordingly. Marketing tactics will also adjust, make sure it doesn’t spread “the wrong message”; Dangai and Danmei dramas have both been pulled off shelves during or immediately after its airing before (Addicted 上癮 and Guardian 鎮魂, respectively), despite having already passing the censorship board.

If a heavy-weight state opinion piece pans the one-lead-fawning-over-the-other scenes in WoH (there are a few of them), for example, scenes / lines of such suggestive nature will likely disappear from the upcoming Dangai dramas for at least a year or two. If the critique spills over to a harsh stance against the presence of queers in Chinese media, all future Dangai dramas can become strict “socialist-brotherhood” stories, their “no homo” message reinforced by, for example, by inserting a female lead (or changing one of the leads to female).

Whether the official public opinion equates the true public opinion or not, public behaviour in China is quickly driven by the official public opinion. Example: the Xi regime’s conservative stance on queer issues has already translated to a quick deterioration of queer tolerance in China; open expressions that were tolerated, even welcomed, just several years ago are now met with significant hostility in the public.

This is a reflection of the nature of their government. A quick thought experiment may explain this. Take … jaywalking. It’s probably fair to say we’ve all committed this “crime” before?

Will you still jaywalk if your government declares it immoral to do so? Where I am, in the United States, the answer is definitely a no. The public will probably laugh at (and make memes about) the poor official who made the declaration, kindly ask the government to do something useful for once (f*** off), and keep jaywalking.

Now, what if the declaration comes with a law that includes a one-year prison term + lifelong criminal record for jaywalking? Let’s say this law is fully executable and irreversible, given this being a thought experiment—nothing you, or the public, can say or do can contest it.

Will you still jaywalk, even if you disagree with government’s stance that the act is immoral? You’ve got a neighbour who continues to defy the law. Will you think twice before letting your young loved ones go out with them?

Very soon, jaywalking becomes “bad”—even though such “badness” had little moral basis at its origin. It is bad because the government has “characterised” it to be so—an authoritarian government that doesn’t allow challenge of the characterisation.

The retention of queer elements in Dangai is the jaywalking in the example. The Chinese government stepping in to characterise (定性) an event, a phenomenon etc is common, and the people know the drill well that they fall in line quickly.  

If a powerful state-controlled media publish a negative opinion piece on the queer elements in Dangai / Danmei, therefore, those elements can disappear overnight.

My question had been: will the state do it? The Xi regime has made its distaste for LGBT+ representation in visual media abundantly clear with its NRTA directives. However, while the Chinese government typically puts ideology (意識型態) as its Guiding Principle, exceptions have always been made for one reason. One word.

Money.

TU is a legendary financial success story every production company (Tencent itself included) wants to replicate. As a result, there are ~ 60 Danmei IPs (book canon) with their copyright sold for Dangai dramas; this long line of Danmei dramas in the horizon has been nicknamed “Dangai 101”, after the name of the show “Produce 101” Dd was dance instructor in. These dramas are all competing to be the next TU by profit.

Adoration from fans is nice, but money is what matters.

C-ent is currently in a financial bleak winter. The anti-corruption, anti-tax-fraud campaign started by the Xi regime in 2018, which cumulated to a sudden (and unofficial) collection of 3 years of back-taxes from studios and stars, has drained a significant amount of its capital; the number of new TV dramas being filmed fell 45% between 2018 and 2019, and production companies have been closing by the tens of thousands. The tightening of censorship rules also means production is associated with more risk. The commercial sector outside c-ent is also eager for replications of TU’s success—they need more “top traffic” (頂流) idols like Gg and Dd whose fans are sufficiently devoted to drive the sales of their products. Such “fan economy” would benefit the government, even if it doesn’t have direct stakes in the companies in and outside c-ent. People’s Daily, the Official State Newspaper, previously published a positive opinion piece on fan economy in 2019, estimating its worth at 90 billion RMB (~13.7 billion USD) per year.

But if the state allows the queer elements in Dangai’s to pass the censorship board (NRTA) for profit, how can it do so with the current “No homo” directive in place? From previous experience (scarce as it may be), the queerness has to be sufficiently obvious for the shows to make the profit everyone is wishing for. Dangai dramas in which the leads’ romantic relationship remains subtle have not sold the way TU does, even if they are well-reviewed and feature famous, skilled actors (as Winter Begonia 鬓边不是海棠红 last year.)

NRTA, and the government behind it, can’t just say I’m turning a blind eye to the flirting and touching for the money. What can it say then?

Here’s what I’d thought—what it can say, or do, is to “characterise” these Dangai dramas in a way that leave out its queerness. It did so for TU. TU’s review by the overseas version of People’s Daily devoted a grand total of two characters to describe WWX and LWJ’s relationship—摯友 (“close friend”). The rest of the article was devoted to the drama’s aesthetics, its cultural roots. (The title of the article: 《陳情令》：書寫國風之美 Chen Qing Ling: Writing the Beauty of National Customs).

How could it do that? The State’s power ensuring few questioning voices aside, I’ve been also thinking about the history and definition of Danmei (耽美)—Dangai’s parent genre as the causes. Based on the history and definition, I can think of 3 ways the queer elements in Danmei (耽美) can be characterised by the state, 2 of which provide it with the wiggle room, the movable goalposts it needs should it choose to want to overlook the queerness in Dangai.

The 3 characterisations I’ve thought of, based on the history and definition of Danmei (耽美) are:

1) The queer characterisation, which focuses on its homoerotic element. * Summary of the characterization: Danmei is gay.

2) The “traditional BL” characterisation, which focuses on BL’s historic origin as a “by women, for women” genre. The M/M setup is viewed as an escapist protest against the patriarchy, a rejection of traditional gender roles; displays of M/M closeness are often “candies” for the female gaze. * Summary of the characterization: Danmei is women’s fantasy.

3) The aesthetic characterisation, which focuses on beauty—from the beauty of the characters, the beauty of a world without harm to the romance. * Summary for the characterization: Danmei is pretty.

The queer characterisation (1) is well-understood, and likely the default characterisation if it is to be made by the fraction of i-fandom I’m familiar with. Most i-fans I’ve met, myself included, would likely and automatically associate the M/M relationships in The Untamed  (TU) and WoH with queerness.

The “traditional BL” characterisation (2), meanwhile, equates Danmei with BL as the genre of homoerotic works developed in 1970’s Japan for women comic readers, and has been widely interpreted from a feminist point of view.

Under such interpretation of “traditional BL” works, the double male lead setup wasn’t meant to be an accurate depiction of homosexuality. It wasn’t about homosexuality at all. Rather, it was about the removal of women and along with it, the rage, the eye-rolling, the unease women readers had often felt when attempting to interact with mainstream romance novels of the time, in which the female leads had mostly been confined to traditional women roles, and their virtue, their traditional feminine traits.

The M/M setup therefore acted as a “shell” for a het relationship that allowed removal of such social constraints placed on women. The lead with whom the woman audience identified was no longer bound to the traditional role of women, such as being the caregiver of the family. The lead could instead chase their dreams and roam the world, as many contemporary women already did or aspired to do; they were no longer limited to playing the passive party in life and in the relationship—and they enjoyed such freedom without risking the love, the respect the other male protagonist felt for them.

BL, in this traditional sense, has therefore been interpreted as an answer for, and a protest against the heteropatriarchal gender norm still dominant in societies deeply influenced by Confucianism, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China. The M/M setup is, at heart, (het) women’s fantasy. The inclusion of two young-and-beautiful male leads also satisfy “the female gaze” ~ the popularity of BL among het women has therefore been compared to the popularity of lesbian porn among het men. In both cases, the audience is drawn not for the homosexual element but by the presence of double doses of sexual attraction.

(Please forgive me if any of my wording comes as disrespectful! I’m not used to talking about these topics.)

The availability of the “traditional BL” characterisation (2) is key to bypassing queerness as a topic in the discussions of Danmei (耽美).

The aesthetic characterisation (3) is very closely related to 2) in origin, but deserves its own point as a characterisation that can stand on its own, and may be more obscure to the English-speaking fandom given the common English translation of Danmei (耽美) as Boy’s Love.

Boy’s Love, as a name, amplifies the queer characterisation (1) and de-emphasises the aesthetic characterisation (3); Danmei (耽美), meanwhile, does the reverse.

Where does the name Danmei come from?

When BL was first developed in Japan, it used to have a now out-of-fashion genre name: Tanbi. Tanbi was borrowed from same name describing a late 19th century / early 20th century Japanese literary movement, known as Tanbi-ha and was inspired by Aestheticism in England. Aestheticism “centered around the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone, and that it need serve no political, didactic, or other purpose”. Along the same line, the core belief of authors of Tanbi-ha was that art should celebrate beauty and reject the portrayal of ugliness in human nature, the darkness of reality:

…Tanbi writers argued that the ideas of naturalism writers such as “objectivism,” “truth is more important than beauty” and so on would “oppress human beings’ desire” so as to “lose beauty and human nature.” Accordingly, they insisted on “acute mental and emotional sensibility” [Ye, 2009].

(Source, with more details on Tanbi.)

Neither romance nor homosexuality were requirements for works in the original Tanbi-ha genre. BL borrowed the name Tanbi because its early authors saw their work created under the same principles: the emphasis on the beauty of their characters, their love (romantic and platonic), in a world that was also beautiful and untouched by ugliness such as sexism and homophobia.

The stubborn persistence on keeping one’s eyes trained on the beautiful, the willingness to turn a blind eye to reality for the sake of the beauty is built-in in the genre’s name. Tanbi  meant more than beauty, aesthetics; its kanji form was written as 耽美;  耽 = to sink, drown in, to  over-indulge in; 美 =  beauty.

Tanbi, therefore, literally means to drown in, to over-indulge in beauty.

Over time, as the genre expanded its writing style, Tanbi eventually fell out of favour as BL’s genre name in Japan. However, as it gained popularity in the Sinosphere in the 1990s, starting with Taiwan and Hong Kong, the kanji of Tanbi was retained as the Chinese name of the genre.

In Mandarin Chinese, 耽美 is pronounced Danmei. A hyperfocus on the aesthetics, the utopian aspects of traditional BL is therefore retained in Danmei by its name. People’s Daily could therefore devote its review of TU on its aesthetics. Realism, including politics and all discussions of social issues, can therefore be swept aside in the name of respecting the genre’s tradition.

I’ve mostly been reading about and observing c-fandom, and I believe these 3 characterisations have all attracted its own kind of fans. Fans who care and talk about queer issues even when it isn’t encouraged by their sociopolitical environment, who shine a light upon these issues in their fan works. Fans who treat the M/M leads as if they were a traditional cishet couple, such as calling one of the leads 老婆 (wife) and assigning him biologically female functions when needed (via, for example, the ABO trope). Fans who insist the works must meet their beauty standards, rejecting those that fail (for example, if the leads are not good looking enough) by claiming they’re there for Danmei, not Danchou (耽醜, “over-indulgence on ugliness”). Fans who are drawn to the genre by a combination of these characterisations.

By the history and definition of the genre, all the above reasons for fanning Danmei are as valid, as legitimate as one another.

I thought about this related question then: are c-fans of the second (traditional BL characterisation) and third (aesthetic characterisation) groups homophobic? When I first asked this question, I—a fan whose fandom experience had been entirely in English-speaking communities—assume the answer was yes. I thought, in particular, the insistence of treating Danmei’s M/M couples as cishet couples in a homosexual shell had to be conscious queer erasure. How can anyone ignore the same-sexness of the leads? How can anyone talk about Danmei without associating it with homosexuality?

However, as I read more—again, specifically about c-fandom, and in Chinese—I realised the answer may be a little more complex.

Previously, I had largely thought about homophobia in terms of individual attitudes. This has to do with my current environment (liberal parts of the United States), in which the choice to accept or reject the queer community has become a close to personal choice. Pride flags fly all over the city, including the city hall, every summer, and most churches welcome the LGBT+ community. I hadn’t considered how an environment in which queers have never enjoyed full social exposure, in which education of related topics is sorely lacking, would affect Danmei’s development as a genre.

In such an environment, it is difficult for Danmei to evolve and incorporate up-to-date understanding of RL queerness.

The consequence I can see is this: Danmei is more likely to be “stuck” in its historical characterisation as (het) women’s fantasy inside than outside the Great Firewall, with its queerness de-emphasised if not erased—and it draws fans who are attracted to this kind of characterisation accordingly. This is, perhaps, reflected by the fact that the (het) women-to-queer ratio of Danmei / BL fans is significantly higher in China than in the West (Table 1 in this article summarises how Danmei / BL fans have split between different genders and sexual orientation in the Sinosphere vs the West in different research studies).

Another driving force I can see for Danmei to retain BL’s traditional feminist and aesthetic characterisations: women in China are not free from the social pressure that led to the birth of BL in 1970’s Japan. While many of them have achieved financial freedom through work and have high education, the young and educated have been subjected to immense pressure to get married and have children especially in the past decade.

In 2007, the China’s state feminist agency, the All-China Women’s Federation (中華全國婦女聯合會), coined the term 剩女 (literally, “leftover women”) for unmarried, urban women over 27 years old. The government started a campaign that, among other things, associated women’s education level with ugliness, and their unmarried status with pickiness, moral degeneracy. The reason behind the campaign: birth rates are plummeting and the state wants educated women, in particular, to nurture a high quality, next generation workforce. More importantly, the government sees a threat in the M/F sex imbalance (high M, low F) that has commonly been attributed to the country’s “one child policy” between 1979-2015, which encouraged female infanticide / abortion of female foetuses in a culture that favours surname-carrying boys. The state fears the unmarried men will become violent and/or gay, leading to “social instability and insecurity”. Therefore, it wants all women, in particular those who are educated, to enter the “wife pool” for these unmarried men. (Source 1, Source 2: Source 2 is a short, recommended read).

For Chinese women, therefore, patriarchy and sexism is far from over. Escapist fantasies where sexism is removed—by removing women from the picture—are therefore here to stay.

Danmei is therefore not queer literature (同志文學). The difference between Danmei and queer literature is highlighted by this reportedly popular saying (and its similar variations) in some Danmei communities:

異性戀只是傳宗接代，同性戀才是真愛 Heterosexuality is only for reproduction. Only homosexuality is true love.

The attitude towards heterosexuality is one of distaste, viewed as a means to an end the speaker has no interest in. On the contrary, homosexuality is idealised, reflecting the disregard / lack of understanding of some Danmei fans have towards the RL hardships of c-queers. The ignorance may be further propagated by gate-keeping by some Danmei fans for safety reasons, keeping queer discussions away from their communities for fear that their favourite hangouts would meet the same uncertain fate of other communities that previously held open queer discussions, such as the Weibo gay and lesbian supertopics. Such gatekeeping can, again, be easily enforced using tradition as argument: the beauty 美 is Tanbi and Danmei (耽美), remember, includes the beauty of utopia, where ugly truths such as discrimination do not enter the picture. A Danmei that explores, for example, the difficulty of coming out of the closet is no longer Danmei, by its historical, aesthetic definition.

[I’ve therefore read about c-queers viewing Danmei with suspicion, if not downright hostility; they believe the genre, by ignoring their RL challenges and casting them as beautiful, even perfect individuals, and in some cases, by fetishising them and their relationships, only leads to more misconceptions about the queer community. Dangai, meanwhile, has been viewed with even more distaste as potential weapons by the state to keep gays in the closet; if the government can shove the Danmei characters into the “socialist brotherhood” closet, it can shove them as well.

I haven’t yet, however, been able to tease out the approximate fraction of c-queers whose views of Danmei and Dangai is negative. The opposing, positive view of the genres is this: they still provide LGBT+ visibility, which is better than none and it would’ve been close to none without Danmei and Dangai; while Danmei may skim over the hardships of being queer, fan works of Danmei are free to explore them—and they have.

This article provides insights on this issue. @peekbackstage’s conversation with a Chinese film/TV director in Clubhouse is also well worth a read.]

That said, Danmei can only be dissociated from the queer characterisation if there’s a way to talk about the genre without evoking words and phrases that suggest homosexuality—something that is difficult to do with English. Is there?

In Chinese, I’d venture to say … almost. There’s almost a way. Close enough to pass.

The fact that M/M in traditional BL has been developed and viewed not as queer but as a removal of F also means this: queerness isn’t “built-in” into the language of Danmei. The name Danmei itself already bypasses a major “queer checkpoint”: it’s impossible to refer to a genre called Boy’s Love and not think about homosexuality.

Here’s one more important example of such bypass. Please let me, as an excuse to put these beautiful smiles in my blog, show this classic moment from TU; this can be any gif in which the leads are performing such suggestive romantic gestures:

How can I describe this succinctly? In English?

Two men acting in love? Er. That’s… the definition of gay, almost.

Two men acting gay? Well. GAY.

Right. Fine. Let’s go negative. Queerbaiting? … Still gay, because the word “queer” is in there.

[Pie note: for the record, I don’t think TU or WoH is queer-baiting.]

Personally, I find it impossible to describe the GIF above in English that I do not automatically associate with RL romantic love between two men, with homosexuality. But can I do it in Chinese?

… Yes.

There’s a term, 賣腐 (pronounced “maifu”), literally, “selling 賣 the rot 腐”, derived from the term known among i-fans as fujoshi and written, in kanji, as 腐女. Fujoshi, or 腐 (“rot”) 女 (“women”), describes the largely (het) female audience of the Japanese BL genre (>80%, according to Wikipedia). Originated as a misogynistic insult towards female Japanese BL fans in the 2000s, fujoshi was later reclaimed by the same female BL fans who now use the self-depreciative term as acknowledgement of their interest being “rotten”, for BL’s disregard of the society’s traditional expectations on women.

賣腐 is therefore to “sell the rot” to the rotten women; ie. the suggestive romantic gestures, exemplified by the GIF above, between the M/M leads are catering, performing fan service to their target audience.

[賣腐 is also a term one will see in the state opinion pieces.]

There’s nothing gay about this term.

I’ve therefore found it possible to talk and think in Chinese about Danmei while giving little thought to queerness. The history and definition of Danmei allow that.

Again, I’m not saying any of this to excuse homophobia among in Danmei and Dangai fandoms. The point I’m trying to make is this — given that Danmei has three potential characterisations, two of which can be discussed without abundantly evoking queer concepts and vocabularies, given that history of Danmei, as a genre, already favoured characterisation 2 (traditional BL), the government addressing homosexuality in its opinions on Danmei and Dangai is far from a given.

By extension, the popularity of Dangai may mean a lot or little to c-queers; by extension, the state can approve / disapprove of Danmei and Dangai in a manner independent of its stance on homosexuality, which is itself inconsistent and at times, logic-deying (example to come…).

This is both good and bad, from the perspective of both the government and the c-queer community.

For the government: as discussed, the “triality” of Danmei allows the state to “move the goalpost” depending on what it tries to achieve. It has characterisations 2 (the traditional BL characterisation) and 3 (the aesthetic characterisation) as excuses to let Dangai dramas pass the censorship board should it want their profit and also, their promise of expanding the country’s soft power overseas by drawing an international audience. These characterisations also allow the state to throw cold water on the popularity of Danmei / Dangai should it desire, for reasons other than its queer suggestions—despite the Xi regime’s push against open expressions of queerness (including by activism, in media), it has also been careful about not demonising c-queers in words, and has countered other people’s attempts to do so.

Why may the government want to throw cold water on Danmei and Dangai? They are still subculture, which the state has also viewed with suspicion. In 2018, a NRTA directive explicitly requested that “c-ent programmes should not use entertainers with tattoos; (those associated with) hip-hop culture, sub-cultures (non-mainstream cultures), decadent cultures.” (”另外，总局明确要求节目中纹身艺人、嘻哈文化、亚文化（非主流文化）、丧文化（颓废文化）不用。”).

Subculture isn’t “core socialist values”. More importantly, it’s difficult to keep up with and control subculture. 環球網, the website co-owned by People’s Daily and Global Times (環球時報), ie, The State Newspaper and The State Tabloid, famously said this on its Weibo, on 2020/03/04, re: 227:

老了，没看懂为什么战。晚安。 Getting old. Can’t figure out what the war is about. Good night.

The State also cannot stop subculture from happening. It doesn’t have the resources to quell every single thing that become popular among its population of 1.4 billion. What it can do to make sure these subcultures stay subcultures, kept out of sight and mind of the general public.

Characterisation 1 (the queer characterisation), meanwhile, remains available to the state should it wish to drop the axe on Dangai for its queer elements. I’m including, as “queer elements”, presentation of men as too “feminine” for the state—which has remained a sore point for the government. This axe have a reason to drop in the upcoming months: July 23rd, 2021 will be the 100th birthday of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the state may desire to have only uniformed forces and muscled, gun-toting “masculine” men gracing the screens.

What about for c-queers and their supporters (including group I fans)? What good and bad can the multiple characterisations of the genres do for them?

For c-queers and their supporters (including group I fans), their acceptance and safety are helped by the Dangai genre, by the Dangai 101 phenomenon, if and only if the state both characterises the queer elements in these dramas as queer (characterisation 1) AND their opinions of them are positive.

Personally, I had viewed this to be unlikely from the start, because a queer characterisation would mean the censorship board has failed to do its job, which is embarrassing for the Chinese government.

Characterisations 2) and 3) are not bad for c-queers and their supporters, however, and definitely not “enemies” of Characterisation 1);  they can not only serve as covers for the queer elements in Dangai to reach their audience, but also, they can act as protective padding for the LGBT+ community if the content or (very aggressive) marketing of the Dangai dramas displease the government — with the understanding, again, that the “traditional BL” arm of the Danmei community is itself also highly vulnerable by being a subculture, and so its padding effect is limited and it also deserves protection.

The downside to achieving LGBT+ visibility through Dangai is, of course and as mentioned, that these dramas are, ultimately, deeply unrealistic depictions of the c-queers. The promotion of these dramas, which has focused on physical interactions between the male leads for “candies”, can encourage even more fetishising of queers and queer relationships. The associated (character) CP culture that makes and breaks CPs based on the dramas’ airing cycle may also fuel negative perception of queer relationships as attention-seeking behaviour, something that can be initiated and terminated at will and for the right price.

Finally, with all this said, which characterisation(s) have the government taken re: Dangai and/or WOH? And what opinions has it given to its characterisations?

PART 1 <-- YOU ARE HERE PART 2 PART 3

[scarletjedi]

untitled Untamed time travel au but make it Mingcheng PART 2A

@piyo-13

Part 1: The Setup

Part 2A: GUSU REVISITED (part 1)

EDIT: Part 2B now up!

y'all...I tried to do one part, but this notefic is quickly becoming fic, and I need to keep it small enough to fit on tumblr, lol. The second half of this should be up in the next day or two!

Okay, the next day they arrive in Gusu, have the run in with Zixuan, which....almost goes the same? Zixuan still buys out the inn, but WWX saw this dude, who made Yanli happy, die (and while JC says it wasn’t him, he still feels that guilt) and JC looks at him and sees Jin Ling’s father, and they just... leave. Do not engage. Perhaps with a look at each other like - we need him to see her for herself, but we don’t want to put her through the pain of losing him.

...okay, JC can’t leave without saying something along the lines of “we’re in Gusu to learn, but also to form alliances. Open your damn eyes, and you might actually make a friend” - Zixuan is shook, but Mianmian looks at JC assessingly. I am here for “isolated and therefore socially awkward Zixuan” and I think it’d be hilarious if he takes this as a sign that JC wants to be friends. So, he will kind of randomly show up where JC is, like a cat trying to signal that they’re friends by mirroring you? Luckily, JC speaks “stray animal” and eventually figures out that Zixuan isn’t trying to spy on him but trying to make friends. It eventually leads to a conversation where JC turns to him and just asks “Why don’t you like my sister?” ...but i’ll get to that.

So, they leave, and this time they double check that WWX has the invitation. He does, but they’re still delayed just a bit going up the mountain, so when they reach the top, Lan Wangji is waiting.

The party stops when they see him, mostly because it looks like he’s barring entry, but JC sees the way LWJ looks at WWX and *knows* that somehow, LWJ is back too.

Now, in The Untamed canon (which we’re in) I fully believe that WWX was in love with (and knew it) LWJ before he died, but either felt that his love was not returned, or that LWJ’s love would end if he knew, the time was never right, etc - so, he’s looking at this like and opportunity to present the side of himself that he thinks LWJ wants.

Meanwhile LWJ is like “THERE IS MY GREMLIN ALIVE AND WELL. THIS TIME I WILL LOVE HIM AND STAND WITH HIM NO MATTER WHAT.”

But when JC announces themselves and WWX pulls out the invitation, LWJ says “Wei Ying” in that WAY of his and WWX freezes because a) he realizes that LWJ is also back b) this doesn’t fit into his plan and c) stall. So he does that awkward laugh, flicking his nose, like “Ahaha, Lan Zhan. It’s me.”

And LWJ *SMILES* “It is good to see Wei Ying.”

And WWX *melts* because he is weak, and JC is like “kill me now” (JYL is confused but thinks its sweet) and everyone else is just *confused*.

Not taking his eyes off WWX, LWJ gestures for Yunmeng Jiang to follow him, and leads them (well, WWX and by proxy everyone else) to the student dorms where they will be staying. (WWX walks next to LWJ, and there is something about the way they fit together that makes JC *feel things* all over again, because here was one more thing WWX lost because of *him* and—

When they arrive at the dorms, the other disciples and Yanli all retire, but JC stays because if LWJ is back then they need to talk before JC leaves those two to “count each others eyelashes or whatever they do when they’re alone together” and the absolute bitchy-ass angry *look* that LWJ sends him has JC standing taller and WWX stepping between them.

“Ayia, Lan Zhan, there’s no need for that. Jiang Cheng and I talked it out. We’re good.”

Lan Zhan looks over at WWX, softening for a moment, before bringing the heat back for JC. “He killed you.”

“You-!” JC clenches his fist, and is thrown because there *aren’t* sparks because Zidian is on his *mother’s* wrist, and it’s enough to make him settle, enough for WWX to step in again and say:

“That fall wouldn’t have killed me if— If I hadn’t lied to him, then Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have had every reason to believe I would survive that fall.”

*That* causes a reaction, a widening of his eyes that would be subtle on any other face, at the implication that Jiang Cheng hadn’t been trying to kill him. But, it doesn’t make the frown disappear. “He did not stand with you.”

“Neither did you!” Jiang Cheng snaps, going for the *jugular* without even realizing, and LWJ just fucking *wilts*

“That...is my regret.”

But before he could say anything else, WWX spoke again.

“Look, there’s no reason to rehash the past. I’m alive! And I know what I need to do to not be bad again, but I would really appreciate it if my brother and my soulmate” and didn’t THAT cause JC’s eyebrows to rise “didn’t hate each other.” Suddenly, several things about the last few years made a lot more sense.

“I don’t hate him,” Jiang Cheng said, as Lan Wangji said “Wei Ying is always good.”

When *that* caused the three of them to stare at each other again, Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. “Look, we need to talk soon about this whole time travel... thing, but I want nothing to do with whatever this” and gestures between them “is. So, I’m going to bed because I have been awake for two days straight and I would like to sleep. Figure it out!” and Jiang Cheng turned and went to find his bedroom (which he shared with WWX. Considering the way they were looking at each other, JC was pretty sure he’d be spending the first night without a roommate. Again).

MEANWHILE, outside, Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are left staring at each other. (Well, WWX stares after JC for a minute, mouth open, but that fades quickly when he sees Lan Zhan staring at him, all intent.)

Wei Ying would normally begin to fidget, but he’s transfixed, heart in his throat, without a clue as to what to do next and—

“A-Yuan.” Lan Zhan said, and Wei Ying’s focus sharpens.

“A-Yuan?!”

Lan Zhan nodded. “I found him, after. He was sick. I brought him here, gave him the name Lan to hide him.” He opened his mouth as if to say more, but fell silent.

Wei Ying was staring with shining eyes. “He lived? My little radish...” he trailed off, staring into the distance. He frowned, shaking his head. “But Lan Zhan, why would you—”

“I should have been there,” Lan Zhan interrupts *interrupts* angrier than he had ever sounded, but even Wei Ying can tell that it’s not directed at him. He cools quickly. “I will not make the same mistake.”

He catches Lan Zhan’s eye again and falls silent. “Oh.”

And Lan Zhan steps back, like he hadn’t intended to let that slip. “If Wei Ying does not feel the same—”

“I do!” Wei Ying bursts out, stepping forward and reaching out, not quite touching. “I do. Feel the same,” he said, quieter this time, for the two of them. Lan Zhan’s expression doesn’t change, but something shifts and Wei Ying knows him well enough to know it as *joy*

And, Lan Zhan reaches out and takes his hand.

(Yes, they use the next several months to actually talk though their relationship, but this is effectively a speed run from the way they feel in Episode 1 to the steps of jinlintai, bypassing all the *plot* that gets in the way of their romance, but whatever, it’s my fic. If this was a wangxian fic first, then I might do the “WWX needs to get a clue” thing he has going in the book, but.... Honestly, I *adore* the idea of *gremlin couple wangxian* on what is essentially their honeymoon in gusu. Like - pre-sunshot Gusu is not *prepared* for post-Yiling Laozu LWJ.)

The next morning, JC arrives to classes with the rest of the Jiangs, not at all surprised to see Wei Ying standing with LWJ (though everyone else seems to be weirded out by it, which may be because they’re standing far too close). LWJ nods at JC, who nods back, grimly pleased to see that there was no longer an open front of hostility. JC wasn’t foolish enough to think it was gone completely, but at least they should be able to discuss business when necessary. (And some part of his mind absolutely began planning the wedding. WWX was Yunmeng Jiang, and if JC had anything to say about it, he would REMAIN YMJ until he was damn sure to remember that he can’t get rid of Jiang Cheng that easily... and JC would be DAMNED if he let Lan Xichen steamroll the wedding prep, which he absolutely would, hopeless romantic that he was).

They enter and settle into their usual spots, though LWJ hesitates when he realizes that his seat would not let him watch WWX. JC continues on to sit in his old seat, determined to see *as little of this as possible* and turns to look at Nie Huaisang, who—

Oh, sonofabitch, Nie Huaisang was back too. How the fuck did their ritual have enough power to drag *four souls* back in time, especially one from *wherever the hell WWX was* JC widened his eyes at him, clearly saying *WTF* which had Nie Huaisang giving him a *look* from behind his fan, which fluttered, agitated. JC rolled his eyes, cutting them over to WWX, who was blatantly staring at Lan Wangji, chin propped on his palm. (And if LWJ had his head tilted so he could look back, well, *most* of the class probably couldn’t tell). Incredible. Jiang Cheng turned to look at JYL, who was hiding a smile behind her sleeve, when movement behind NHS caught his eye.

Meng Yao. Oh, that wasn’t awkward at all. Nie Huaisang flicked the corner of his fan, and JC turned back aground, knowing they would talk later, and then they were all standing as Lan Qiren walked into the room.

Which was when it dawned on Jiang Cheng that he would have to take these classes again. Judging by the soft whimper behind him, Nie Huaisang realized it, too.

The class runs the same, as clear as Jiang Cheng can remember, even if the recitation of the rules seems occasionally pointed at Lan Wangji, which is odd. He doesn’t dwell on it, however. He’s gotten good at looking like he was paying attention while thinking of other things, and Jiang Cheng had a lot to think about.

~*~

Like before, WWX invites NHS to go fishing (and JC isn’t sure if he realizes that NHS has also come back yet - in fact, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t), only this time, JC agrees to go with them and WWX pulls LWJ along, leading the group far enough ahead that JC and NHS end up waking behind. NHS keeps up with looked wide-eyed and confused until they leave the main areas for the backwoods.

“So,” Jiang Cheng starts. “Something went wrong.”

“Obviously,” Nie Huaisang hisses, snapping his fan closed. “I woke up in the same room as him.”

JC winces, because yeah, awkward. “I’m a little surprised he’s still alive, actually.”

NHS’s jaw clenched, and JC was reminded very strongly of NMJ. “No one would support flat out murder, even if they don’t really care about the victim.”

“And it’s messy,” JC offered, dry. NHS looked at him from the corner of his eye.

“It’s so hard to get blood out of white fabric,” he agreed and JC laughed.

THAT gets WWX to spin around. “You laughed!” he accuses, pointing a finger at JC.

“So?”

“So I haven’t heard you laugh in years, Jiang Cheng!” he pouts. “Why do you laugh at his jokes and not mine.”

“You are an *actual child*--”

Then, of course, NHS gasps, his fan falling from his hand. JC, catches it, reflexively, startled at the horror he sees on NHS’s face as the show drops. “Wei-xiong, you— but you—”

WWX laughs awkwardly. “No need to worry, I’m —” probably going to say something about not being evil anymore, or not following the demonic path, but NHS cuts him off.

“Back from the dead!?”

Which is when JC remembers that they used Baxia in the ritual, and if his core was enough to bring back WWX, then maybe...

“Da-ge!”

MEANWHILE, in Qinghe, Nie Mingjue wakes up, which is odd, considering the last thing he remembered was dying. Perhaps he didn’t die? Unless the doctors had some new pain medications, he didn’t feel as if he had just had a near-fatal qi-deviation.

Tentatively, he opens his eyes and sees...his bedroom ceiling. How long was he sleeping that they brought him from Lanling to Qinghe? His door opens and he’s reaching for Baxia before he can think — and stops when he recognizes Nie Zonghui (though not before Zonghui notices the aborted movement). “Sect Leader....troubled night?”

Nie Mingjue snorts. “That’s one way to put it.” There’s something rattling around the back of his mind, some detail that doesn’t quite add up as Nie Zonghui helps get him ready for the day. It’s not just that Zonghui doesn’t seem surprised (or relieved) to see him up and awake, it’s the names that Zonghui mentions in is reports — names of disciples who are, like Zonghui himself, long dead.

It’s when Zonghui mentions that a messenger bird had arrived from Gusu that morning, carrying word that Huaisang had arrived safely and that Meng Yao would be leaving tomorrow to return to his duties that the other shoe dropped.

“Zonghui, there’s something I forgot to tell Huaisang. I need to send him a message, the faster the better.”

Zonghui gave a short bow. “Consider it done.”

BACK IN GUSU

Nie Huaisang was pacing atop a long, flat rock on the river’s edge. It wasn’t a very long boulder, maybe 5 or 6 steps at most, but it was dry so Jiang Cheng wasn’t too worried about him slipping. Besides, Lan Wangji was sitting only a few stones away, playing a soft melody on his guqin.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were both in the stream, robes and pants hiked up to keep them from getting too wet, as they waited to catch their dinner. Jiang Cheng remembered getting upset about WWX fishing their second night there, blatantly flaunting the “no killing” rule, but if LWJ felt like indulging his soulmate, what the fuck, then who was Jiang Cheng to complain.

On the rock, Huaisang was plotting out loud, starting ideas and rejecting them just as quickly. “You know, if you put this much effort into your studies this time, you might not have to come back again,” JC called over. Nie Huaisand didn’t even break his stride, just flapped his fan irritably in Jiang Cheng’s direction.

WWX darted forward, pulling a wriggling fish into the air in triumph. “Jiang Cheng, catch!” He tossed the fish, and Jiang Cheng caught it with ease. He considered, for a moment, throwing it at Nie Huaisang, but he was getting hungry. He tossed the fish into the bank, where it wouldn’t flop back into the water. Lan Wangji side-eyed it, warily.

“You know, he’s not actually done anything wrong yet,” Wei Wuxian said. “Can you really hold him accountable for actions he hasn’t taken?”

That made Huaisang stop. “To a certain extent, yes, I can.” That got him a *look* from both LWJ and WWX. “Look, all the decisions we make are influenced by the lives we live. And no, as far as I can tell, Meng Yao didn’t come back with the rest of us - and I still don't’ know why you came back too, Lan Wangji,” LWJ makes a gesture that is far too elegant to be, and yet totally is, a shrug, “but so far, Meng Yao’s life is *exactly the same* as the Meng Yao who committed those acts. That means Meng Yao is the same man who WILL make those choices, barring a MAJOR shift in the way he views the world.”

“Can we cause that shift, then?” Wei Wuxian asked. “I just don’t know if ‘kill him dead’ is always the best course of action.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes narrowed, a fraction of the coldness Jiang Cheng had seen that day seeping through, before his expression cleared a bit. “It would be a touchy subject for you, yes, but Meng Yao is not Wen Ning.” Wei Wuxian flinched, and, surprisingly, it was Lan Wangji that spoke.

“One cannot change another’s mind,” he said, vanishing his guqin and rising to his feet, one hand behind his back. “One can only show the path; only they can choose to walk.”

“And we have the path to show him,” Wei Wuxian argued. “Don’t we have a responsibility to try, knowing the damage he can do? If we know we have the opportunity to change things and save lives, are we not bound to try? Is that not why Jiang Cheng was sent back in the first place?”

“I’m fine with killing him,” Jiang Cheng said. “He deliberately uses his own weakness to learn the vulnerabilities of others, and then uses that as leverage to get what he wants and then discard them once his objective has been met. He uses Jin Zixuan’s better nature against him. He used Mingjue’s sense of fair play against him and then used his biggest fear to kill him, and he used Zewu-jun’s kindness as a shield.” He looked up at Nie Huaisang. “Though, if you’re right and he’s back too, Meng Yao might not live long enough for us to do anything about it.”

“Oh no,” Huaisang said, voice dryer than dust. “What a tragedy.”

“His information was key in winning the war,” Lan Wangji said. “Can we win against the Wens again without him?”

“Hey, yeah,” Wei Wuxian added. “Speaking of - am I going to have to...” he trailed off, miming playing a dizi.

“You better not!” Jiang Cheng snapped. Wei Wuxian looked at him in surprise, then smiled sadly.

“No, you said not to, and I won’t refuse a direct order from my sect leader,” he said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I know how.”

“Meng Yao wasn’t actually that good a spy,” Nie Huaisang said, a faint frown between his brows that Jiang Cheng didn’t trust at all. It meant he had noticed something and was putting pieces together that Jiang Cheng wasn’t sure he wanted known. “More than once his information was either wrong or outdated. A lot of the correspondence was kept for our records, and I went back to check once I had my suspicions about him.”

“You think he was playing both sides?” Jiang Cheng asked. Nie Huaisang fluttered his fan and didn’t disagree.

Between them, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian caught more than enough fish to feed Huaisang as well, and he and Lan Wangji were both invited back to the Yunmeng dorms to eat with them and their sister. Yanli was surprised, of course, but rolled with it well enough. Luckily, she had chosen to make a soup that was in line with Gusu Lan’s dietary restrictions, so Lan Wangji was able to join them. WWX and JC exchanged smug looks when Lan Wangji blinked down at his soup in surprise, and began to eat more quickly.

Later that night, while WWX was walking LWJ back to his rooms, Yanli poked her head into JC’s room. “Second Young Master Lan seems to have taken quite a liking to A-Xian,” she said.

JC nodded, because that was certainly one way to put it.

“Which makes sense, A-Xian can be very charming,” she continued. “But from what the other female disciples tell me, Second Young Master Lan is ...” he paused, and Jiang Cheng filled in:

“A giant stick in the mud?”

“A-Cheng!” Yanli scolded, but there was laughter behind her voice. “...essentially, yes.”

Jiang Cheng sighed. He had no idea what to say here. He was never good at lies, never LIKED lies, preferring to neither confirm nor deny another’s suppositions when the need for secrecy was necessary...and he had never been able to lie to Yanli. Never wanted to. And besides, Nie Huaisang hadn’t covered this possibility with him.

“A-Jie,” he said, “There’s something I want to tell you, but it’s going to sound like a lie even though it’s the truth. I need you to hear me out, and to believe me, and I will do whatever I can to convince you that it’s real and true.”

And...he tells her. Flat out, just tells her about living the next ten years of his life - the end of her engagement, the indoctrination in Qishan, the burning of Cloud Recesses and Lotus Pier, the death of their parents, losing his core, gaining his core but losing Wei Wuxian, the War, her marriage to Zixuan, A-Ling, Nightless City, Nie Mingjue, death after death after death — and Nie Huaisang, like vengeance made flesh, with a crazy, desperate plan.

“So, yeah. They’re close because they’re, like, in love or whatever.”

“Because they’ve known each other for ten years.”

“Seven,” Jiang Cheng corrected. “They only had seven.”

Yanli looks a little stunned wild-eyed. She had looked sad yet resigned when she had heard about her engagement ending, hopeful when she heard about their wedding. Her eyes had shone suspiciously when she heard about Jin Ling...a few tears falling when she heard about Qongyi pass and Nightless City.

“Do...” he began. “Do you believe me?” he asked, voice small and hating it, but he couldn’t stand it if Yanli thought he would make this up.

Slowly, she nodded her head. “It sounds...wild,” she said. “But I know my A-Cheng. He is honest, and would not make up wild stories like this. So, if A-Cheng says it, it must be true.”

“A-jie,” He said, and had to stop, his voice choked off, and when Yanli leaned in to hug him, his tears were sweet with relief.

~*~

The next complication came the next day, at the presentation ceremony, when, once again, Wen Cho showed up to interrupt Yunmeng Jiang’s gifting. It took everything in him not to punch Wen Chao in his smug face with Sandu unsheathed, and Wei Wuxian was a dark, simmering presence next to him. Somehow, the steps played out like they had before - a brief exchange lead to swords drawn, lead to Xichen stepping in and Wen Qing soothing tempers with quick words.

Jiang Cheng wasn’t prepared to see her again. Her, or Wen Ning, who was a remarkably still shadow behind her. When they left, his eyes stayed lowered towards the ground. There was nothing to make Jiang Cheng think that there was something different, except the long running knowledge that he had the worst possible luck.

WWX was strangely unwilling to approach Wen Ning first, though he clearly wanted to. Some misplaced guilt, perhaps. He still clung to LWJ’s side, which was in no way avoidant behavior, WWX, but Jiang Cheng was surprised when Wen Ning found him first.

“I knew it!” Jiang Cheng cried out, to everyone’s surprise, even Wen Ning. He gestured at Wen Ning. “WWX’s here because he’s tied to me, and Wen Ning here is tied to Wei Wuxian.”

“That still doesn’t explain Lan Wangji,” Nie Huaisang said, tapping his fan against his cheek.

“Nothing explains Lan Wangji.”

“Aiya, Jiang Cheng, so mean!”

None of this has much of an effect on the present moment, however, save that it causes Nie Huaisang to adjust his plans *again*. “No one else has better come back!” he demanded. “All of these calculations are hard, and I am *delicate,* Jiang Cheng.”

“Yeah, a real wilting flower.”

Later that night, just before curfew, a missive arrived to Nie Huaisang from his brother. Huaisang walked as fast as he could manage from the Nie Quarters to the Jiang, bursting into Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s room, holding the letter aloft, speaking as soon as he’s through the door: “It’s him! He’s alive! Da-ge’s back!”

Huaisang slammed the letter on the table, reaching for the nearby inkbrush, quickly grinding some ink to circle letters on the page. There, written in an otherwise standard letter reminding Huaisang to mind his studies and practice his saber, was the phrase: Do Not Trust Meng Yao.

TO BE CONTINUED....

[inessencedevided]

(You can find the set that this gif belongs to here 💙)

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours

I was tagged by @aheartfullofjolllly. thank you so much Pat! it was really fun to reflect about my own process 💗 You can find her post here and @lan-xichens' post that started it all here :)

Also thank you @huigusu 🥰 (who tagged me for my nie brothers set) I'll get to that one in a few days!

Now Pat gave me two sets to chose from to show my process, so obviously I chose the more complicated one :P

I only work in Photoshop CC 2018. I know that there are programs out there for easier cutting and sharpening but I have only just figured out how to do that in PS and I am too lazy to figure out any other programs right now xD

1. Idea and Planning

This set, like most of my sets with lyrics started with me reading the poem, clutching my heart and going "oh shit this fits my favourite characters!!". The idea actually started with me thinking that the first stanza of the poem would go really well with wwx during the burial mounds arc. Then I realized that the last stanza fits lwj better than him and from there came the idea to contrast the both of them next to each other. This is when I realized I wanted to do a dark-light contrast set, though I did not know that I would go with red and blue at that time. My idea in the beginning was just to do a black and white set

I was really impressed by how Pat said that she plans her sets around exact timestamps. Because I don't do that at all ^^ I just get ideas for which scenes would fit (in this case the wwx burial mounds scenes and lwj's kneeling and punishments scene) and then I watch the scenes to narrow them down.

Back when I made this set, I still used a screenrecorder (AceThinker Screen Grabber Pro to be precise. They have a test version that allows you to record up to 3 minutes) and recorded the scenes I needed from Netflix. This worked well enough but now I have the entire show saved on an external drive and it makes a world of difference when it comes to gif sharpness

Now, in this case I had to repeat this step once because when I was almost finished, I realized that I wanted a gif for the lwj corner but let's pretend I didn't do that and that's the way this gif was always going to look because otherwise this post will be way too long ^^

2. Creation

Short disclaimer: The creation process for this gifset was anything but linear. Multiple effects I used here were things I had never tried before. I just had a vague idea and tried to realize it through trial and error. So whenever I say "then I did xyz", it is implied that I ultimately went back to that step several times and changed stuff ^^

I started with the Wei Wuxian part of the gif. I usually use a frame rate of 0,06 (with some variation depending on gif length and size). I work in timeline so I converted all the layers to a smart layer. Then I resized the gif into a square, leaving big chunks of the gif empty (as can be seen below.) I flipped the gif horizontally, so he is looking inwards. This was simple because I felt it fitted the composition better. Then I imported the Lan Wangji part of the gif, again with a frame rate of 0,06. (Image 2)

After that I created a layer for masking in a separate PS document by rotating a square until it was point down (is that a rhombus?). I sized it to match my gif (540x540 pxl) and copied it over. (Image 3) a bit of masking magic and ta da! There's the basic layout (Image 4)

I put a layer of solid black behind wwx to get rid of the transparent bits (Image 5) and then started adding more white and black to both sides by adding solid whit and black layers that i put masks on and changed the opacity as i needed (Image 6)

("reading" direction: from the upper left to the lower right corner)

Then I fiddled with the colours a bit. The first thing I always do is using the curves layer to get more contrast. Then I use the colour balance tool and the selective colouring tool to get rid of that cql-typical cyan tint after that it's just trying to have it look "natural" while the colours still fit the overall scheme. This was difficult here because wei Wuxian’s side of the gif was very dark and when i turned up the saturation to see which colour dominated it was a very weird mixture of multiple colours. That's when i decided that I'd just go with red on his side, since lwj's side was already so blue and those to look great as contrasts.

After that just came a lot of fiddling with selective colour layers and brightness and contrast unti I has happy. There really wasn't much to it ^^. (Image 1)

After that I added the text. I knew I wanted the two lines to for a square of some kind. So I tried different fonds until I arrived at the one below. The two lines are in seperate layers so I could move them around and change the spacing between the letters until I was happy with the layout. I also changed the layer mode for the text to "difference" (is that what it's called in english? my PS is set to german sorry ^^), keeping their colour white. (Image 2)

I originally hadn't planned adding anything else but I felt like the gifs (plural because I switched between the gifs of this set) was still kind of empty and lacking, so I added the tear down the middle (a tutorial for that is either coming up later or already posted. I recently got an ask for this :)) (Image 3)

It still felt empty after that, so I tried different overlays. Okay no, first I wasted a lot of time on different free image sides but then I tried out different ones until I chose the one you can see in the finished gif. I liked that one because a) I felt the round shape was a nice contrast to all the straight lines already there and b) because once I applied a black and white filter to it and switched the layer setting to "difference" (again, i hope this is the correct translation) it looked a bit like a moon. (Gif at the top)

("reading" direction: from left to right)

And that's it! :)

Although in general, these gifs took so much fiddling! I went back and forth between them a lot and sometimes almost redid the entire thing because I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning and by the time I noticed an error, the only way to fix it was ti redo everything. So yeah, this set definitely is the the one that took me the longest out of all the ones I've posted so far.

3. Posting

I save all my gifs to my drafts first to see what they look like put together and to check if they look any different on mobile. Usually i do this several times and change stuff until I'm happd enough with it to hit post. Once i am happy enough, i can't hold back. Doesn't matter if it's at a time when nobody is online, i hit post 😅

And that's it!

Tagging:

@lanwuxiann for this gifset (I adore it so much. I've looked at it and read it severat times since you posted it and the poem just kills me every time!)

@suibianjie for this gifset (The combination of static images and gifs in your gifs is always absolutely perfect! This one is only my favourite of yours because the light coming from behind wwx is just so pretty!!! ^^)

@sweetlittlevampire for this piece (It was soooo hard to pick a piece of yours because I have so many favourites! But this one is just so out if this world, I want to know how you worked that magic :D)

@wei-gege for this set (sparkling shijie! 😭 that set is so incredibly beautiful! I love how you matched the colour of the overlay with her dress!)

@purplexedhuman for this set (your gifs are always incredible! I chise this one because it showcases both your colouring skills and some really intricate effects)

If any of you have already been tagged or don't have the time or energy for this, obviously no pressure to do this at all! 🥰

(btw, I originally tried to place the actual text of this under a "read more" cut but somehow it always messed with the order of the images, so this ended up as a rather long post. sorry!)

[starsxinxthexbluexsky]

My 5 Favorite Moments of GGDD

Like last time, the GGDD moments were difficult to choose, because I like them all. I had to look at some things again. But, finally, I posted it for mistake...😃😃😃😃. The fate wanted me to post this.

This is Fake. My imagination. CPN

5. On BAZAAR interview, first of all I love the fact that they say that they knew each other before on TTXS, but both emphasize that there was no eye contact, nor that they spoke, but that's not what I like, it's just an addition for put us, in context. What I like, is when GG draws DD (I think most of them like it), DD says his eyes aren't that big, but GG says he had heard comments from some friends saying that DD's eyes were tight, so GG drew DD's eyes bigger. Meanwhile, he says that ... DD looks at him with a silly face and smiles, even he places his hand on his chin, looking very focused on what his GG says (it is my impression, it can vary between viewers), GG makes a sign, but DD plays dumb and clears his throat, looking away (more like he's trying not to see his GG).

4. In TTXS, when they were together in the same place for the first time, in 2017. A cute GG, with a pink jacket and accompanied by X-NINE and a DD very cute and surprisingly smiling, imitating everything that his not-yet-GG did, is that DD couldn't take his eyes off from GG, DD moved his hands nervously when he was next to GG, and DD looked at him when GG looked away, but stopped when it was already very obvious (I keep saying it's my perspective, others may think other things). I don't think GG didn't realize it, because I think, when someone looks at another person a lot, that person has to realize it, for me, DD…well, the fool was very obvious. He even showed off his mating dancing (is a joke) just to impress his GG and use his pistol finger to aim at him at the end of the dance (yeah, for me he aimed at GG). DD and his love at first sight…GG couldn't be saved.

3. At Happy Camp. First is the fact that they sat next to each other, moving away if the person on the opposite side got too close, so they were practically on top of each other (I have a meme about that…). When the hosts asked questions, they both started whispering to each other (I won't say anything more about this). Then there's the dance they did, DD was distracted by GG (my mom told me *the boy in the flowered shirt* didn't dance that well, just looking at GG and that was a comment she made when I didn't even believe that they were SZD, still) and then there's that dance move that couples suspiciously do in their wedding photos. Then, DD started pouting, because GG was paying more attention to Daxun. At the Happy Camp hole games. DD allows GG to win, even though DD is competitive by nature and always wants to win (that seemed pretty obvious to me, DD's “double standard” makes an appearance, for his GG). GG gets jealous of Daxun, when he and DD are trapped inside the hole, one on top of the other (his face is scary), but DD doesn't realize at the time (but then cleverly fixes it). Also, when DD gets hurt (although this isn't a good thing) we see GG's real concern, that he is unlike any other. You can see the others concerned, but GG's concern is so legitimate and true that it even hurts me every time I see him again (maybe because he felt guilty that DD hurt himself from the necklace he gave him). The last thing about this, is the fact that they share every little comment, no matter how silly it is, it is so sweet.

2. TTXS 2019, First is the fact that DD invited GG, I think, he could invited someone else. After all, GG was a person, whom DD knew for a short time in 2018, if we put them on the screen, but still DD decided to take it to TTXS, who are a family to him. Then, GG and DD sang their respectively songs "What I Miss" and "If I Were Young", I mean from all the speculation that was made with bombology, DD was supposed to be angry that day (for some reasons), but when they both sing these songs. The way DD sang the song and how sweet GG smile was, DD's voice was so soft and full of soul, so soothing. GG nailed the high notes and turned to DD to meet his eyes while singing. DD was fascinated even though he can't clearly show it. Uff...every time I see them I have to look away, I can't handle that ... both are so...well, that's why I like it so much ... besides, the fact that DD brought his photo album when he was a child and GG wanted to take it (is a joke 😂), he was serious about bringing the album, DD is so silly cute. GG also sings "Love Confession", when he's sitting with the other guests. DD stares at him with sheep's eyes, until GG signals DD for stop to looking at him (with heart eyes), because they are recording them...this man, I can't handle him, neither of them.

1. Interview for "The Paper", DD and GG both have a stuffed animal in their hands (they both look sweet). MC ask them various things (obviously), they both look so comfortable and smiling. MC even ask them if WWX and LWJ's bedtime was the same as them. DD says no, and GG says he's similar, GG says "Sometimes he ... aren't you?" "Sometimes you will stay up later?" (Me: GG, how do you know that? 👀, they are the best friends forever 😂) and DD says yes. Near the end they talked about when they were both filming, that they should record scenes from when WWX and LWJ were young by the day and at night the "after 13/16 years" scenes. The MC asks, what would they think, if a TV show organizes them to go skiing and DD says he can teach to GG and GG laughs saying he's just a beginner (this kills me, they look so wonderfully comfortable) DD looks sweet saying some of ski techniques, while looking at his GG softly, in the end GG says it's okay. Afterwards, the MC asks what they would say to "CQL" fans who say they look the most beautiful after watching all 50 episodes of the drama. GG say a lot of things with a sweet voice and then he is ashamed (it is a sweetheart) and DD wants to laugh at what his GG says, but when it is his turn he says that he will not say anything, GG shows his rabbit teeth ... (Double standard, it seems DD really likes when his GG shows his rabbit teeth to him). And here comes my favorite part. The word is supposed to be deep, but I don't really know what it means, it seems like something important and obviously GG is very surprised that DD said it. Well, they ask you to describe the CQL summer in three words. GG answers right away, burning hot "灼热" (not the literal characters) and DD thinks about it for a moment, quite a bit, compared to how fast GG answered. At the end, DD says true fellings "真情实感" GG looks at him for a moment and lets out a WOW!!! Very tall, covering his mouth, he seemed very surprised. DD seems to realize that it was obvious (it's my imagination), but he says he wants to change the phrase to touching "就 感人" (or something like that) but, GG tells him that they aren't going to edit just because he said that ... I mean, he screwed up 😂😂😂. Simple woman, this is the first place after all.

Bonus

Honorable Mention

Sina Interview in CQL film place. When, GG starts to flatter DD by saying that he danced well in TTXS, but later he realizes that he was not only a good dancer, but also a good actor and when he mentions that LZ doesn't have many lines (mentions LWJ and DD gets angry 😂😂😂), DD makes this face. (Note that DD was happy, as he watched his GG compliment him, until he mentioned LZ)

My 5 Favorite BTS by GGDD

My 5 Favorite GGDD Fake Rumors

[ouyangzizhensdad]

what’s ur opinion on the whole ancestral hall thing because I’ve seen many takes on how wangxian were in the wrong and how jc was right to be mad but I always thought that his anger during that situation stemmed from a place different to that of what everyone seems to think 😶

Hi anon,

I do not hold all the cultural knowledge to be able to be a definite resource wrt how wangxian’s behaviour would have been perceived “in-universe”. So take my thoughts on the topic with a grain of salt, and please do not mind that I will focus more on what can be found explicitly in the text itself. 

My understanding from what others have explained is that bringing to the ancestral hall someone who’s not from the “family”, in this case LWJ, is generally disrespectful. Considering WWX’s inner thoughts, where he’s literally asking JFM and Yu-furen to witness their bows, I think that perhaps WWX was so caught up in the fantasy/idea of LWJ as his future spouse that he might not have registered as much how, in the current situation, LWJ was not family. 

It does however make me pause a little that, until JC’s appearance, the narrative does not seem to present the situation in such a manner that we might think that it was extremely presumptuous of LWJ to kneel alongside WWX, and accompany him in burning incense. Considering that LWJ is known to be someone who is very proper, and that WWX is not unaware of the rules of propriety (even if he does not always follow them), I do find it interesting that there is no hesitation from either of them. 

To make up for his thoughtless words, he lit up three more sticks of incense. Just as he raised them above his head, still apologizing in his mind, it suddenly got darker beside him. He turned to find that Lan Wangji had also kneeled down beside him.

Now that they were in the ancestral hall, for the sake of courtesy, of course he had to show his respect as well. Lan Wangji also took three sticks of incense and, sweeping his sleeve to the side, and ignited them using one of the red candles. His movements were proper, and his expression was grave. Wei Wuxian tilted his head to look at him, his lips curving upward almost uncontrollably. Lan Wangji glanced at him and reminded, “The ashes.”

The three sticks of incense that Wei Wuxian held had been burning for quite a while. A bit of ashes had already accumulated at the top, close to falling off. However, he still refused to insert them into the tripod, instead saying, “Let’s do it together.”

Lan Wangji didn’t object. And so, each with three sticks of incense, the two of them kneeled among rows of tablets and bowed down to Jiang Fengmian and Yu ZiYuan’s names together.

Once. Twice. The movements were exactly the same. Wei Wuxian, “That’s it.” He finally placed the incense into the tripod.

In the end. Wei Wuxian glanced at Lan Wangji, who’s kneeling as properly as ever beside him. He put his hands together and uttered in his heart, ‘Jiang-shushu, Yu-furen, it’s me again. I’m here to disturb you two again. But I really did want to bring him here and show him to you. Let the two prostrates we just did count as prostrating* to the Heavens and the Earth, and to the Father and the Mother. Please help me reserve the person beside me for now. I’ll owe you the last prostrate for now, and find some chance to make up for it in the future…’

I am not certain as well how WWX having left the Jiang sect affects his “right”  to be there. JC does seem to suggest that, as an “outsider” who was, still according to JC, “kicked out of the sect,” WWX doesn’t a have right to be there. I cannot tell whether that is an entirely fair assessment due to my lack of cultural knowledge, since JC demonstrates that he is not above bending the truth to fit his own narrative (ie when he says that WWX was kicked out of the sect when we already know at this point in the narrative that this is not what transpired). 

However, it is also important to keep in mind that a character’s anger, just like real people’s, is not always motivated by rational concerns or that these rational concerns might become entangled with other grievances, some of which might not be as motivated. JC’s initial reproaches directly indicate that he considers it a faux-pas at best and an insult at worst that WWX decided to come and take LWJ with him.

“Wei Wuxian, you really don’t take yourself as an outsider, do you? You come and leave whenever you want. You take with you whomever you want. Do you perhaps still remember whose sect this is? Who’s the owner?”

This is reinstated a little bit later:

Wei Wuxian threw him a sideways glance, speaking in a calm voice, “I’m only here to burn some incense. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

Jiang Cheng, “Burn some incense? Wei Wuxian, are you really that dense? It’s been so long since you were kicked out of our sect, and here you are taking unwelcomed people with you to burn incense for my parents?”

That being said, it is interesting to note that WWX calls these remarks “vulgar“ and “obliviously malicious”. Now, the question is, is it because he’s fiercely protective of LWJ that he takes these words so badly or because in this case it is transparent that JC is intentionally overly spiteful? 

Oher reproaches levelled against WWX, or the two of them, also have nothing to do with them burning incense in the ancestral hall. Indeed, JC brings up grievances he still hold against them, some of which we know are not exactly fair. As well, his own insecurities and issues fuel his anger, something directly acknowledged in the text.

Jiang Cheng mocked, “Look how forgetful you are. What does unwelcome people mean? Then let me remind you. It was because you played the hero and saved Lan-er-gongzi, who’s standing beside you right now, that the entire Lotus Pier and my parents went down with you. And that wasn’t enough. With the first time, soon comes the second. You even had to save Wen-gaos and drag my sister down with you. What a person you are! What’s more, you’re even so generous as to take the two to Lotus Pier. The Wen-gao’s strolling in front of my sect’s gates; Lan-er-gongzi came here to burn incense. You’re here on purpose to remind me, to remind them.” He continued, “Wei Wuxian, who do you think you are? Who gave you the face to take whomever you want into our sect’s ancestral hall?”

Wei Wuxian knew that Jiang Cheng had to settle this with him no matter what.

For Lotus Pier’s destruction, Jiang Cheng thought not only that Wei Wuxian responsible, but also that Wen Ning and Lan Wangji were responsible too. He wouldn’t give a friendly look to either of the three, let alone when they were walking right in front of his face at the same time inside Lotus Pier. He was probably infuriated.

[...]

“Jiang Cheng, just listen to yourself. What are you saying? Is it appropriate? Don’t forget who you are. After all, you’re a sect leader. Insulting a renowned cultivator in front of Jiang-shushu and Yu-furen’s spirits—where is your discipline?”  

 His original intention was to remind Jiang Cheng to at least hold some respect for Lan Wangji. However, Jiang Cheng was the most sensitive. From those words, he managed to make out the notion that he was not fit to be a sect leader.

Of import to the context of the scene, JC suggests also that WWX insulted the memory of his parents by “fooling around” with LWJ in Lotus Pier, suggesting that their hug (and romantic feelings) “dirtied their eyes and contaminated their peace”. He spells it out once more, a little bit later. 

Jiang Cheng pointed outside, “Mess around outside however you want, whether under a tree or on a boat, hugging or otherwise! Get out of my sect, get out of anywhere my eyes can see!”

Especially so because we get the contextualisation from the narration (one of the few times we are told things that WWX cannot be privy to) that JC had been following them for a while, stewing, until he exploded.

At once, he was almost certain that the two really were in that kind of relationship. He could not turn around and leave, yet he did not want to say a single word to the two, so he continued to hide himself as he followed them. Every single look and movement that passed between them seemed different in his eyes. For a while, the shock, absurdity, and slight disgust that he felt combined to overpower his hatred. It was only after Wei Wuxian brought Lan Wangji into the ancestral hall that the long-suppressed hatred was awakened again, devouring his courtesy and rationality.

I’m too tired to go check the original chinese to see whether the translation conveys well the connotations of the text, but like... “absurdity”, “disgust”, “hatred”, “devouring his courtesy and rationality”: as a writer, if I wanted to show that a character was engaging in a bout of rightful anger, that’s certainly not how I would present their emotional and mental state before they lashed out. 

Now, WWX is not blameless for the situation, as he is quick to react both because of his over-protectiveness of LWJ and his own insecurities regarding his feelings toward him, which make him loose his cool and start the escalation that JC is too happy to continue 

Wei Wuxian raged, “Hanguang-Jun is only my friend—what do you think we are?! I warn you. Apologize right now—don’t make me beat you up!”

Hearing this, Lan Wangji’s expression froze for an instant. Jiang Cheng laughed, “Well, then I’ve never seen ‘friends’ like that before? You warn me? Warn me against what? If you two had the slightest trace of integrity left, you shouldn’t have come here and…”

Seeing the change in Lan Wangji’s expression, Wei Wuxian thought he felt insulted by Jiang Cheng’s words. He was so angry that his entire body was shaking. He did not dare think about what Lan Wangji would think after being shamed like this. The rage from his heart rushed to his head as he threw out a talisman, “Have you had enough yet?”

The talisman was both fast and powerful. It exploded at Jiang Cheng’s right shoulder, causing him to stagger. Jiang Cheng didn’t expect Wei Wuxian to attack so suddenly. His spiritual powers hadn’t recovered completely yet, either, and so the talisman hit its target. Blood seeped from his shoulder as disbelief flashed across his face. Zidian immediately unravelled from his fingers, lashing out with sizzling light. Lan Wangji unsheathed Bichen to block the attack. The three began to fight inside the ancestral hall.

To me the text seems to suggest, as you did, that JC’s anger and lashing out is not actually about the incense burning in the ancestral hall in itself--that he let his hatred overpower any sense of courtesy and rationality, as the narration suggests. It is easy to ponder whether JC would have been that upset if, when he had gone to look for WWX, he had not found him being happy in LP with an ‘outsider’ like LWJ, but on top of it all, acting like he is in love with a man. Would his reaction have been the same if he had just happened upon them kneeling in the ancestral hall? Would his reaction have been the same if he still did not blame WWX, and so many others, for all the misfortunes that ever befell him and his family? As well, one could also easily wonder how in a similar situation a character who is not as prone to anger and flying off the handle like JC would have reacted to the same actions.

TLDR: I do not have the have the cultural knowledge to tell how much “in the wrong” the characters were, however I think it would be disingenuous to suggest based on what we are presented with in the text that JC’s reaction was 100% motivated and rational, particularly since the text literally includes the line “the long-suppressed hatred was awakened again, devouring his courtesy and rationality.”

[perkynurples]

HOW did the lan bros ever reconcile the whole "did you really fight 30+ of our esteemed clan members & break so, so many lan principles?" "did you really stand up at the pledging & swear along with the others to kill wei ying?" THING? like... jiang cheng got a decade-plus to sort out his feelings on his own (yes, he's super traumatized, but this is a lan bros ask. Yunmeng bros reconciliation is its own deal). The lan bros had to look at each other (and AFTER each other) that entire time like HOW

oh they absolutely understood what the other one was about

and to drive that point home, I first gotta refer all of you to: THIS POST by @baoshan-sanren that explains the difference between an individualist and collectivist society, and THIS ONE by @acutebird-fics that talks about LXC’s motivations re: LWJ’s punishment

Basically, LXC knew from day one that a) LWJ was hopeless for WWX and b) that WWX would be trouble, there was just absolutely no guessing how much trouble. There’s a lovely conversation they have about halfway through everything unfolding, when LWJ asks him something along the lines of ‘are there set rules for everything in the world?’ and LXC basically goes ‘look, I thought so too, but then I did A LOT of reading from the one source everyone always told me would have all the answers (aka all the Gusu texts), and turns out... yeah, not so much. Can’t predict EVERYTHING.’.

And this really just precedes everything LWJ goes through because of WWX, on his behalf, and it also explains why LXC never once falters from his side. Is he heartbroken to see LWJ like this, sacrificing so much for the person he loves the most but is incapable of saving? God damn, of course. Is he appropriately horrified, watching him stand against the elders of their own clan? UH-HUH. Is he maybe the one to finally gently knock Wangji out when he won’t stop attacking, apologizing all the way but absolutely determined that this can’t go on any longer? ...I just thought of this and made myself sad, so who knows.

But like, he understands. He’s never shown disparaging LWJ for his choices. He is shown trying and failing to get through to WWX and explain to him that certain people care about him, and if he could please think for one second about those people’s feelings. He wants to protect Wangji with everything he’s got, but he also knows he ultimately has to let him make his own choices, and can’t really save him from the fallout of those.

And true, we never really get to see how LWJ reacts post-punishment, we never get those sweet sweet Twin Jades talks we so deserve, but. LWJ absolutely understands LXC’s choices, too. Because his are his own, and he wouldn’t dream of asking his Sect Leader of a brother to follow him and WWX down that single plank bridge, ever.

And besides, by the time he’s standing up against those sect elders, we’ve been afforded the luxury of his and WWX’s POV for ages, we sympathize. However, if you look at it from literally any other point of view, he’s chosen to defend a mass murderer and a guy who’s disrupted the very fabric of what that culture believes to be right, against his own damn family. It’s romantic for us, because we’re supposed to see it that way, but holy shit, dude. Like, from the point of view of someone raised in an individualistic society, of course it’s brave and heartwrenching and ultimately amazing, what both LWJ and especially WWX do, but when you take the time and learn a little bit about just how big of an issue disrespecting the dead like that is to that culture (I can’t claim to be an expert, others would have to take over here), you realize, okay, wow. This is kind of a big deal. 

As to why LXC went along with LWJ’s punishment in the wake of all that? I refer you to the posts linked at the top, they’re both very important to this part of the discussion. It’s honestly doing the characters a bit of a disservice, not considering other angles and points of view, but to get back to the point of this ask and answer, fics where LWJ goes around actively hating LXC in the wake of all that do not sit well with me - like, he is aware which hill he’s chosen to die on, so to speak. Does he regret it? Abso-fuckin-lutely not. Is he going to accept the punishment anyway? Yeah. Is he going to understand that LXC did what was in his power to support him when it mattered, but ultimately had an entire sect to think of? Come on, of course.

In a perfect selfish individualistic move, LXC could have said fuck it and stood by LWJ’s side, refused the punishment the elders came up with, et cetera. Hell, we could spend ages speculating about what would have happened differently if he’d, say, sheltered the Wen, or even spoken out a bit more loudly in their favor. But we absolutely cannot take these characters and regard them outside their circumstances, outside their responsibilities and duties. WWX makes breaking the rules look easy, LWJ suffers for it but it’s ultimately framed as this grand romantic dramatic thing. LXC does his damnedest to keep his sect afloat while also being scared shitless for his little brother, probably, but we are not afforded the luxury of that POV, now are we.

In conclusion, I don’t think for a second that these two could ever hate each other, or look at each other and suddenly not recognize who the other one’s become. Unlike JC and WWX, these two don’t have any secrets in front of each other. They don’t feel the need to keep any, because the other one knows them as well as he knows his own heartbeat. They don’t fall into the good old ‘I’m going to protect you and not tell you about it and never talk about our feelings and it’ll work out somehow’ emotionally repressive grooves. Of course they have their issues, and of course Wangji probably resents everyone who tries to talk some sense into him immediately after WWX’s death, but this is Xichen we’re talking about. Wangji cried in front of him and only him when they were little kids, and he can cry in front of him now, only half because of the bandages Xichen is changing on his back.

Even after everything, especially after everything, there just simply isn’t a place for hating their brother in either of their hearts, is the point I’m trying to make, I guess.

[besanii]

DH prompt, maybe: after seeing the fire festival, I kinda wanna see the first time LWJ ever managed to fluster WWX? I imagine WWX (and all of their mutual friends) would be absolutely gobsmacked about it after three centuries. Thank you so much for everything you do for us—DH is the absolute highlight of my day and never fails to make me smile. Smugji is a blessing on this Earth XD

Extra 12: Prize | previous parts here

“A-Cheng, A-Xian, good luck!” Jiang Yanli calls from where she’s standing with the rest of the spectators. “And be careful!”

Wei Wuxian waves back at her enthusiastically with his sword aloft, jumping up and down amidst the line-up of competitors in today’s tournament. A red competitor’s headband is tied across his forehead, the ends draping down the length of his back, and he’s swapped out his usual loose, flowing robes for a more form-fitted ones in black and red. He likes these robes, likes the way they look on him, and how easily he can move around in them.

Beside him, Jiang Cheng is also waving at his sister, albeit in a more dignified manner, inching as far away from Wei Wuxian as possible.

“Can you calm down?” he hisses, barely restraining the urge to kick him. “I’m embarrassed just standing next to you.”

“Heh, don’t be so prudish, Jiang Cheng, you’re not even sixty thousand,” Wei Wuxian says. “You’re acting as old as Lan-laotouzi.”

He dances away from Jiang Cheng’s attempted swipe at his head with a laugh, only for a pair of hands to grab him by the shoulders.

“Oops, sorry,” he says, turning around to see who it is. “I didn’t mean to—oh, hey Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji looks down at him, bemused, his hands still on Wei Wuxian’s shoulders so he has to crane his neck to look at him over his shoulder.

He’s dressed in white, as always, with a white headband, but like Wei Wuxian has swapped his usual flowing robes for ones that allow more freedom of movement. The shortened hem shows off his unfairly long legs, and the sleeveless outer robe his muscular torso and arms, which suddenly reminds Wei Wuxian of their current position. He twists himself around to face Lan Wangji, breaking free of the hold on his shoulders at the same time, and beams at him.

“Hi, Lan Zhan!” he says. “Ready to lose?”

Jiang Cheng snorts under his breath, but Lan Wangji only raises an eyebrow.

“You believe you’ll win?” He sounds almost curious.

Hah! Little does he know, Wei Wuxian is the best at these games. Undisputed champion in Qing Qiu and Lotus Pier. He grins.

“Wanna bet?” he asks, and waggles eyebrows suggestively. “Loser has to grant the winner one wish.”

Lan Wangji considers this for a moment, expression thoughtful. 

“What sort of wish?” he asks.

Wei Wuxian grins confidently. “Anything! As long as it’s within the loser’s power to grant, of course. Don’t worry, I won’t ask you for anything that goes against the laws of the Nine Heavens.”

“Alright,” Lan Wangji agrees finally.

To his credit, Lan Wangji doesn’t look concerned in the slightest. That will change really soon, Wei Wuxian thinks smugly. Once they get into the arena, he won’t know what hit him. He raises his sword in both hands and bows with exaggerated formality.

“Then please go easy on me, Lan-er-dianxia,” he says.

--

When the gong sounds, all twelve competitors fly up and position themselves on top of the pillars of ice dotting the arena. Wei Wuxian winks at Jiang Cheng from where he’s perched on top of one of the shorter pillars as they draw their swords and wait for the signal to begin. He looks around for Lan Wangji and spots him close by, Bichen’s blade glinting in the sunlight.

Typical Lan Zhan to choose the tallest vantage point. All the better to look down on us from on high.

Not that it matters. Wei Wuxian has a way to deal with him. He might as well start thinking about what embarrassing thing he can get Lan Wangji to do after this is over.

“Rules are simple,” the referee is saying. “Remove the headband from your fellow competitors’ heads. You may use swords, talismans, and spells, as long as it does not endanger the lives of your fellow competitors. You must remain in human form throughout the competition. The last one with their headband still on will be declared the winner.”

Easy. He rolls out his shoulders and neck and bounces a few times on the balls of his feet to loosen up his joints. 

As soon as the gong sounds again, he whips out an amplification talisman and torches the pillars surrounding him, melting them enough so that the competitors perched on top of them come crashing down as they crumble. Wei Wuxian darts forward while they get their bearings and undoes their headbands quickly on his way past them. He grins, three headbands in his grasp.

Across the other side of the arena, Jiang Cheng is plucking the headband from another competitor whose lower body has been completely frozen onto the pillar to prevent them from moving. He looks over at Wei Wuxian and raises Sandu in challenge.

With his fire trick used, Wei Wuxian starts jumping between pillars, quick and sure-footed. He trades parries and punches, dodges the occasional fireball—because of course the other competitors would follow suit and favour fire in an arena of ice—all the while keeping an eye out for Lan Wangji. He doesn’t want to knock him out too early in the competition.

Half an incense stick’s worth of time later, there’s just him, Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji left in the arena. He has four headbands, five including his own, Jiang Cheng three, and Lan Wangji four. The ice pillars around them are in various states of collapse, making their footing rather precarious, but they pay it little mind as they size each other up from different corners of the arena.

“Hey Lan Zhan,” he calls, waving his collection of headbands in the air and flashing him a cheeky grin. “Remember our bet! You better prepare yourself, cos I’m not gonna let you off that easy!”

“You talk too much,” Jiang Cheng snorts, and takes into the air.

“Says you!” Wei Wuxian draws a quick sigil in the air and fires it in his direction; it catches Jiang Cheng’s ankle, wrapping around it like a piece of string. “Gotcha!”

He yanks on his end of the spell and the talisman amplifies the force, sending Jiang Cheng crashing into the arena below with an undignified shout. The string shortens as he reels it in like a fishing line while he hops forward to meet it halfway, grinning down at a dishevelled Jiang Cheng covered in snow.

“Thank you,” he says glibly, reaching down and plucking the purple headband from around his head. Jiang Cheng grins.

“No,” he says. “Thank you.”

He grabs hold of Wei Wuxian’s outstretched hand, holding him in place just as a flash of blue skims the side of his head. A moment later, his own red headband flutters down past his nose, piling around his neck. Jiang Cheng releases him with a whoop and flops back on the ground with a satisfied grunt. Wei Wuxian is frozen in place, staring at neat cut through the side of his headband.

What the fuck just happened?

He nearly jumps out of his skin when a pair of hands appear on either side of his head. He whips around to see Lan Wangji standing much too close for comfort, his fingers brushing Wei Wuxian’s neck.

“Wha-What are you doing?” he asks, voice oddly high-pitched, heart racing. His skin feels like it’s on fire where Lan Wangji’s fingers have made contact, and the heat spreads to his ears and neck.

Lan Wangji lifts the headband carefully from around his neck and holds it up in front of him, an strange, unsettling glint in his amber eyes.

“I win,” he says calmly.

Wei Wuxian forces himself to laugh, but it comes out louder than he’d intended, and a lot more hysterical. He hears Jiang Cheng snort; Lan Wangji’s lips twitch.

“Congratulations!” Wei Wuxian says. “Well done! Haha, yes, uh—I can’t believe you and Jiang Cheng teamed up against me—”

He breaks off with a breathy squeak when Lan Wangji steps even closer and he can feel the heat radiating from his body. It may be just his imagination, or a trick of the light, or maybe Wei Wuxian’s vision growing fuzzy around the edges, but Lan Wangji’s eyes have darkened to almost a molten gold as he holds his gaze. It’s suddenly really, really hard to breathe.

He squeezes his eyes shut as Lan Wangji leans in—his body doesn’t seem to be able to do move at all, did Lan Wangji use a freezing spell on him?—and he braces himself for—for something. Except...there’s nothing more than a light tug on his scalp, and then his hair comes tumbling over his shoulders.

“What...?”

He opens his eyes to see a familiar length of red ribbon in Lan Wangji’s hand, along with the red headband, and a look of immense satisfaction in Lan Wangji’s eyes.

“My prize,” he tells him. “As promised.”

And then he turns on his heel and flies out of the arena, leaving Wei Wuxian standing there, flummoxed and speechless, as Jiang Cheng wheezes with laughter on the ground.

// buy me a ko-fi //

[many-gay-magpies]

@honeyseungz @loabivey so that uh. that mini au that you had like a very small rb thread about yesterday (well over a few days ago now that im posting this). well uh. um . actually you know what im just gonna let you read it yourselves

so. heeseung, jay, and sunoo are all brothers. wether its actual brothers or just "brothers" by blood bond or whatever idk. but, regardless, they're brothers. im thinking that like, at first they aren't vampires, theyre just regular dudes yknow? (and just a forewarning, a lot of this isnt gonna be as compliant with the enhaverse theorizing we've done so far, it's just a little brain worm i wanted to play around with, throwing a little bit of enhaverse crumbs in here and there)

but anyway. they're not vampires, im thinking theyre just like... adopted/found family brothers, probably orphans or something. regardless they love each other a lot and its great. personality-wise everything is super different, but just for plot conveniences, heeseung, jay, and sunoo are the yunmeng trio (heeseung as wwx, jay as jc, and sunoo as jyl respectively), and jungwon is lwj.

the three brothers meet jungwon, probably brought together by this Big Fantasy Evil, maybe something involving the vampire queen as a character? idk. there's some big evil shit going down, and the three brothers somehow end up with jungwon and HIS big bro, who im imagining is jake (basically the lan xichen in this situation—very soft, kind, gentle; the vibes are right). both of them are vampires, not that our three orphan bois know that. they get caught up in the danger, and vampire bros jake and jungwon coms to the rescue.

now, a little bit of personality-mapping here: jay is outwardly very loud, fun, temperamental, and sarcastic, generally very much like he is irl; but inside, he's intensely loyal, protective, and loving, with a HUGE soft spot for the people closest to him. sunoo is very sweet, sensitive, and kind—the walking hug of the three brothers, who is certainly not without his bite and wont hesitate to talk back to anyone who hurts them. aggressively and without mercy. also he makes them soup for comfort and is generally best boy. heeseung is very goofy, playful, free-spirited, and bright, but insecure and sensitive underneath it all; generally a loud annoying mess of a boy. pure chaotic neutral and a gremlin if there ever was one. jungwon, on the other hand, is... not. he's nervous, quiet, cautious to a fault and intensely righteous, always standing up for what's right and refusing to waver from his chosen path. very lawful good vibes. he, naturally, is more than a little put off when jay, sunoo, and heeseung's chaotic ass come crashing into he and his brother jake's once-peaceful (ish) lives. and it doesn't help that heeseung is a... huge flirt, and apparently deadset on making jungwon his friend. fuck.

jungwon... doesn't know what to do. and it would all be so much easier if heeseung were dumb or stupid or unattractive or just a total asshole—but he isnt any of those things. he's beautiful, smart, insanely witty with a brain faster than any jungwon's ever seen—he can't help but admire him. but on top of that, he's wreckless as hell, unpredictable, and pushy, and gives jungwon heart attacks way too much for his liking. he doesn't even have a heartbeat. he's fucking dead.

it eventually comes out that jake and jungwon are vampires; the brothers are surprisingly cool with it. not the craziest thing that's happened to them.

the five boys get closer, staying together as they fight their foe (which im becoming increasingly inclined to make the werewolves), and through a series of convoluted events, jungwon learns that heeseung is not only gorgeous, smart, talented, and funny as all get-out, but also sensitive, caring, insecure, and thoughtful... and heeseung, who's only goal had been to break through the nervous and straightforward outer shell of his young dongsaeng, does just that. and jungwon, naturally, starts to fall in love.

somewhere along the line, though, things go wrong—as they were bound to do in an au loosely based off of the untamed. something happens to heeseung; he's fatally wounded after saving jay's life, and disappears, nowhere to be found. his brothers eventually assume the worse; that he's gone forever. but the queen finds him, takes care of him, nurses him back to health. turns him.

when he comes back, nothing's the same. the war is still going, and his brothers thought he was dead—but he isn't. but he's... different. jungwon and jake are quick to realize that he's been turned, how, they dont know—but they talk to him, teach him, try to help him, jungwon especially. of course he does; he's in love. heeseung, of course, is dismissive; doesn't take it seriously. ill be fine, whats so bad about this? or, perhaps, he doesn't let on just how hard he's taking it; fearing vulnerability more than he fears being a vampire.

inevitably, though, heeseung's wrecklessness leads to doom—he lets his bloodlust overtake him, relishes in it, no matter how much jungwon had warned him against it, pleaded with him to take caution. he says it's usefull—says he can help them take out enemies, help them win this war. jungwon warns him that he could end up getting more than he bargained for. heeseung doesn't listen.

heeseung helps them win the war; practically wins it for them. hes happy, bitterly, until he isnt. he's happy, until he sees his brother—sees sunoo. blood-covered, pale-skinned, drained.

no.

heeseung is broken. jay even moreso. jay yells at him; yells and yells and yells and yells. curses him out, tells him he hates him, tells him he's nothing but cruel evil—he doesn't mean it, of course, but no one knows it then, not even him. now he is only angry; so, so angry. heeseung, wrought with guilt and shame and grief, flees—hides himself somewhere secluded, does the closest thing a vampire can possibly do to death, the equivalent of a thousand-year hibernation. none can find him, he's made sure of that. in his guilt and shame and anger he stews, asleep, for hundreds, thousands of years.

after the anger passes, jay is more than anything in mourning—for heeseung as well as for sunoo. he has a realization, that being that, when, inevitably, heeseung comes back, he doesn't want him to be alone: even if he'll have jungwon and jake, it won't be the same as having his brother. so jay pleads, cries, begs for jungwon to turn him—so that they can search for heeseung together, so that when heeseung comes back, he'll have jay waiting for him, too. so, reluctantly, jungwon gives in and turns jay—after which he helps him deal with his newfound immortality and vampiric status—helping him handle his bloodlust and helping him learn how to feed. over the centuries that heeseung is gone, jay, jungwon, and jake grow even closer (j line eyyy), inseparable as they search for heeseung and even outside of that. jungwon and jay are the closest, jay growing a colossal soft spot for the boy and not hesitating to take him under his wing and protect him with all he has (initially, sort of as a replacement for protecting heeseung, but eventually jay's affection for jungwon grows into something all it's own). to be clear, no love triangle bullshit here, only sickening-sweet platonic soulmates jaywon and a jungwon that is still achingly in love with heeseung.

(okay for anyone thats actually watched cql/read mdzs, yes i KNOW lwj and jc did not get along at all and kind of hated each other but. this is my au i do what i want, and if i want to add soft jaywon into the mix then im fucking going to, goddamnit)

OKAY TIME FOR SOME WACKY SIDE-PLOT MADNESS

so. sunghoon. how does he fit into all this? how does he end up being the one to trigger heeseung's "resurrection"? how does heeseung GET resurrected in the first place? well, not to worry, you're about to find out! and i am too because i'm just figuring this out as i go along baybyyyy

sunghoon, im thinking, is a friend of jake's (lets throw some jakehoon in here too bcs why not), either from before everything went to shit and heeseung went and isolated himself, or sometime during the numerous centuries jakewon spent looking for heeseung with jay. either way, sunghoon is this boy who jake is friends with and cares about a lot, and is also maybe kind of in love with. while jaywon spend most of their time looking for heeseung, jake spends his with sunghoon—finding himself often alone, now that his little bother is going off on his own adventures.

in a situation quite similar to heeseung's, sunghoon probably gets fatally injured somehow and is near death, but jake, not wanting him to die, decides to turn him instead. niki is also involved, and it's a sort of package deal, because before meeting jakewon, heeseung, and everyone, they were their own little thing; not unlike jay, heeseung, and sunoo's brother's triad. they were both probably orphans, niki being the much younger one, and as such sunghoon took him under his wing and never looked back. when jake turned sunghoon, niki was basically like "m8 what the fuck" and demanded he be turned too, not wanting his sunghoon-hyung to live on forever while he grew old and died. jake, also having a soft spot for niki, was like "fine alright" and turned him too. so, now their little vampire coven numbered five, and all was (moderately) well.

or not.

the thing was, jake hadn't anticipated how powerful sunghoon would be—there's nothing in life that anyone's found yet that would indicate a person's level of power once turned, so jake had... pretty much no way to see this coming. but, anyway, sunghoon was... really, really powerful. like, insanely powerful. all the abilities vampires were said to have in legends, the likes of which were previously reserved for just legends, he had them; flawless teleportation, mind control, shape-shifting, the whole bit. and on top of that, he was controlled—insanely good at monitoring himself and keeping tabs on his own instincts. one of the most self-sufficient, well-mannered vampires jake had ever seen. it was... frankly insane.

the problem? the queen. this is where she comes in, because she's played a part in all the boys' transformations, albeit indirectly—when jake and jungwon first turned, it was she who turned them. she could sense sunghoon's power, and she wanted it for herself. jake and jungwon had done well at avoiding her, even forgetting about her for a while; but what she wanted, she took, and take she did. it was sunghoon she took: luring him to her in small increments and then all at once, taking control of him, turning him into a mindless puppet. sunghoon had always prided himself in control, and without it, havoc wreaked: bodies dropping left and right, people being killed seemingly at random, their only purpose being to instill fear and paranoia.

now, niki had heard tales, before, from his hyungs but also from regular townspeople to whom the legend had gotten passed down, of heeseung, and how great and terrible he was. heeseung, the townspeoples' folktales said, had been insane, unstoppable: a mad genius far too gone for redemption. niki also knew from his hyungs' fond stories that heeseung, more than evil, was kind and caring; he was loyal, and powerful in his loyalty, and niki thought that if anyone could save his sunghoon-hyung, it was heeseung.

so niki went on a journey. without telling jaywon or anyone else (and thus causing quite the panic), he spent years searching for heeseung, everywhere jaywon had thought to look and everywhere they hadn't, and twice more for good measure. and, by some stroke of luck, either due to his own sheer force of will of something else entirely, niki found him: locked away in an old castle that never quite seemed to stay put, constantly phasing in between realities. it made sense why no one had found him before then—he didn't want to be found. desperately, in fact.

but niki, too, was desperate. he enacted a ritual that was said (by jake, so of course it was to be trusted) to wake any vampire that had gone into hibernation, and, miracles continuing to work for the bitter young boy, it worked. heeseung awoke—startled to find himself staring into the face of a very teary, very angry (visibly) sixteen-year-old.

confusion passed, things and motives were explained, and heeseung (although bitter at having been woken up, and still riddled with enough guilt to last 1500 lifetimes) attempted to patiently tell niki that he had no fucking idea how to help sunghoon whatsoever. niki pretty much said "well you better fucking find a way because you're not going back to sleep now, the world's about to fucking end. also jay and jungwon-hyung have been looking for you for literal centuries, do you know how pissed theyd be if i went out looking for you, found you, then came back empty-handed? really fucking pissed is how much. also sad. did i mention sad?" and heeseung, notoriously weak and also kind of (read: very) in love, is just like "...jungwon? jay?"

so niki brings heeseung back to the others, the return journey taking a long enough time that the two become significantly close to each other, heeseung's long-forgotten big brother instincts (tm) kicking in around the younger vampire. niki has to basically drag heeseung out of the castle by his teeth, because as much as he misses his brother and jungwon, he's still so incredibly guilty, and completely convinced that he isnt worth love or life whatsoever and that jay still hates his guts. and, jungwon... he doesn't even want to think about jungwon. how he failed him. how he let him down. but, niki slowly works through the insecurities, bit by bit: assuring heeseung that, no, even though jay will definitely rip him a new one once he sees him again, he'll also cry and hug him for at least 24 hours because he misses him like hell and heeseungie hyung you have no idea.

they weather a lot together. storms, mental breakdowns, bouts of blood-starvation so severe heeseung thinks he'll lose it again: but they're there for each other. they hunt, talk, keep each other warm, and in it, form an unbreakable bond. niki had heard tales of the legendary lee heeseung, who wiped out entire armies in two seconds flat and comforted his friends when they were sad and annoyed jay to the very ends of the earth: but what he's faced with is a man with more insecurities than niki has hairs on his head—and he has a lot of hairs on his head.

by the time they make it back to the coven's home, heeseung has grown sufficiently attached to the enigma that is niki, and has almost completely but it out of his mind that he's here for his old friends, too. he's only doing this for niki: it's a fact he's comfortable with. so when they reach the front steps he just... freezes.

i have a very clear image of it in my head—jungwon, jay, and jake sense niki's presence, in some weird vampire-y way. it's been around 10, 15 years since he left at this point, so of course they rush out to greet him, ready with scoldings and lashings about how stupid he had been (after, of course, making sure he's unharmed and alright)—but it all dies on their tongues as soon as they see who's with him.

frozen. everything is frozen.

i imagine it's a lot like lulu and artzyy's post. jungwon is the first to move, stepping forward and whimpering out a broken "hyung", and all heeseung's guilt and avoidance is forgotten in favor of cradling jungwon to his chest, holding him close and whispering reassurances into the crown of his head, wonnie, im so sorry, hyung's so sorry; i didn't mean to leave you for so long, i'm here now, its okay. and of course then jay comes in, crying and screaming about how the fuck is it okay, how can it ever be okay, how could you just not mean to leave us alone for 1500 years?! how the fuck do you just expect to waltz back into our lives like nothing ever happened and pretend its all okay?!? and then he hits him, and hurts him, tries to make him feel even an inkling of the hurt he was made to feel for the past fifteen hundred years—but then punching him turns into fisting hands into the back of his shirt and sobbing into his neck and holding him so tight he wouldn't be able to breath if he had the need to and please, please don't leave, why would you leave, you asshole, why did you leave?

so yeah. things happen. reunions are had, tears are shed. some indirect heewon love confessions probably happen later on in the form of very intense devotions of life and self and all that. "walking on the single-log bridge in the dark really isnt so bad" you know the whole shbang. meanwhile jay salty in the background just like "cant you just say you love each other like normal human beings jesus fucking christ"

jayseung's relationship (or the reigniting of it) is, well, rocky. they're both conflicted—jay even more than heeseung. because, the thing is, heeseung killed sunoo. as regretful as he is, that doesn't make it any easier to forget. but he's back, and alive, and in one piece, and he isn't leaving, and jay knows it wasn't really his fault, he wasn't in control—but he killed him. he killed their brother. and it WAS his own stupid fault for losing control in the first place, for not listening to jungwon, so what the hell is jay supposed to think? he flip-flops between being intensely grateful that heeseung is back and okay and finally with them again, and then remembering what he's done, giving him the cold shoulder and not speaking to him for hours on end. and all the while, heeseung is riddled with guilt, and shame, and grief he'd suppressed for far too long; niki's stubbornness combined with jungwon's unwavering support being the only things keeping him from bolting into oblivion all over again. all in all, it's a difficult time—but they get there. eventually.

naturally, they save sunghoon. what else is there to do? they defeat the queen, break her control over their friend—and then jakehoon have their own teary reunion, not unlike heewon's, and sungki have theirs, not unlike jayseung's (although with a... considerable decrease in cursing and conflicted emotions, and a lot more immediate sobbing). they're a mess—sunghoon is traumatized, heeseung is traumatized, jay and niki are traumatized, they're all just fucking traumatized. jayseung will probably take a long time to get back to the way they once were, if it's even possible—there'll always be an empty space there, something gone, something missing, and it's one that can't be filled. jungwon barely lets heeseung out of sight or touch alike, and heeseung isn't much better off. jay's always been the more touchy one out of the three of them; but after years of missing, of longing, there's plenty of time to be made up, and heeseung is just... so, so soft, and warm, and being held by him is the loveliest thing jungwon's ever known.

AND NOW A SUNOO THING, BECAUSE THE IDEA OF ENHA LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER AS OT6 WITH SUNOO JUST FUCKING DEAD DOES. NOT WORK FOR ME

so like. sunoo isn't dead, or he doesn't stay dead, or not the soulless-unmoving kind of dead anyway. you know how necromancy and fierce corpses exist in donghua and shit? well they exist here too because fuck you and also i said so. i made myself sad and now im making it happy again goddamnit.

anyway. after he dies, sunoo gets found by the queen, too, and because she's all-powerful and whatnot she fucking necromances him—figures he'll be useful later. as he is, though, he's basically nothing more than a puppet; like wen ning and song lan were when they were being controlled. his soul isn't... gone exactly, just imprisoned, prevented from being able to come forward and command his body.

so. sunoo is still partially alive, and the boys (jay, jake, jungwon, sunghoon, niki, and whatnot)... don't know that. i imagine that for pretty much the entirety of the centuries that heeseung is gone, sunoo's status as a necromanced fierce corpse goes entirely unknown to them, and it's only after heeseung is brought back by niki that he starts to resurface. i imagine they realize it in a sort of tense, action-filled scenario: the boys have gone to investigate another attack, thinking it's sunghoon, but as it turns out the queen has had TWO undead corpses running around doing her dirty work instead of one. and one of them is sunoo.

heeseung and jay, of course, are stunned. they cant believe it's real; it isn't real, it can't be—and yet.

a lot of angsty plot stuff happens—i dont have the energy or enough shits to give to figure out what. the thing is, the queen only kept sunoo this long and brought him out as a tactic to lure heeseung, make him weaker; and it probably worked. in the midst of both fighting against sunghoon and fighting to SAVE sunghoon, heeseung is bent on saving sunoo as well, and there's probably a lot of very angsty talk wherein there are disagreements about who's life, really, is more important in this situation, and if heeseung is just trying to make up for what he did to sunoo. regardless, heeseung ends up saving sunoo and bringing his soul back to the surface. what he doesn't expect is for sunoo to forgive him—fully and wholeheartedly. and it feels wrong, because no, you should be angry with me, you should hate me and want to hurt me like i hurt you; but sunoo is just... happy. happy that he's back, happy that heeseung is back, happy that they're all together again. and its conflicting, to say the least. even moreso because sunoo isnt stupid—he didnt just act like heeseung was an innocent who did no wrong; he knew he had been wreckless, knew he was at fault, and he forgave him still. loved him still. that was something heeseung... hadn't been prepared for.

like i said in the last part, they save sunghoon; how, im not sure, but they save him, probably with a fair bit of sunoo's help, and they're together again. only the tiny difference here is that sunoo is with them too. sunoo is back, and the gang has yet another undead bestie to teach the ropes of being a vampire to. things are awkward, obviously, especially between the original brother's trio of heeseung, sunoo, and jay; because sunoo is his usual sweet and kind self while jay believes that he should be more angry at heeseung for killing him, heeseung agrees, and jay has some very conflicted feelings about how self-depricating his hyung is being (because like... yeah you killed sunoo and im supposed to hate you but you're not supposed to hate yourself, you idiot, what the fuck?)

(also like. if we're gonna take some more crumbs from cql canon here im gonna go ahead and say sunoo's death was at least somewhat self-sacrificial, even if it was heeseung that ended up causing it in the end)

(i kind of love how jiang cheng-y i made enhaverse jay here to be honest)

(okay this has been in my drafts WAY too long because ive been waiting for some miraculous Other Detail i need to add to pop up in my mind, but honestly i can just add anything else i think of in a reblog afterwards, this bitch just needs to see the light of day)

[crossdressingdeath]

I know a lot of people refuse to believe/forget that JC did canonically torture people to death for 13 years, so I gathered some proof directly from the novel that basically proves that JC did indeed do those things:

“Jiang Cheng spoke grimly, ‘Break his legs? Haven’t I told you? If you see this sort of evil and crooked practice, kill the cultivator and feed him to your dogs!’.”- Chapter 7, Arrogance Part Two

As soon as JC sees someone who uses even the tiniest bit of resentful energy, and for this reason:

“The boy’s movements were already fast, but Wei WuXian had done a lot of “tripping someone while slapping a talisman onto their back”, which meant that he was faster. The boy suddenly felt his torso become numb, his back weakening, and he unwillingly collapsed onto the ground, with his sword also falling to the side with a clunk. He couldn’t get up no matter how hard he tried, as if a mountain was on top of him. On his back, there was a ghost who had died from gluttony, crushing him to the point that he couldn’t even breathe. Although the ghost was weak, it was completely capable of dealing with brats like this one. Wei WuXian picked up his sword, weighed it in his hands, and swung toward the direction of the deity-binding net, splitting it in half.”- Chapter 7, Arrogance Part Two

So as soon as WWX defends himself from JL, and keeps him pinned to the ground, and obviously not going to harm JL, JC says this. Kinda sketchy.

Another thing;

“After a moment, the corners of Jiang Cheng’s lips pulled into a twisted smile. His left hand started to unconsciously stroke the ring again. He spoke softly, ‘... Well, well. So you’re back?’”-Chapter 10 Arrogance Part 5

All because WWX just summoned a corpse to save JL. Remember, at this time, everyone thinks WWX is actually MXY. All the disciple says is that ‘MXY’ was the one who summoned WWX. What if it had been an accident? ‘MXY’ was only trying to save JL, and WN had been the first corpse to pop up. JC doesn’t say anything in thanks for saving JL, and instead does this;

“Sure enough, as if eyes grew on his back, Jiang Cheng saw that he went outside Lan WangJi’s area of protection, and was determined to grasp the chance. With a slanting crack of his whip, Zidian slashed out with the semblance of a poisonous dragon, precisely landing on the center of his back!”

He whips WWX immediately. Doesn’t seem like the actions of someone who didn’t torture people to death for years, simply because he believed they were WWX. Immediately. Let that sink in. And even if you want to argue that JC probably only whips him because of WN; here’s another thing.

“A moment ago, Jiang Cheng was certain that this person was Wei WuXian, and all of the blood in his body started to boil. Yet, now, Zidian was clearly telling him that he wasn’t. Zidian definitely wouldn’t deceive him or make a mistake, so he quickly calmed himself and thought, this doesn’t mean anything. I should first find an excuse to take him back and use every possible method to get information out of him. It’s impossible for him to not confess anything or give himself away. I’ve done things like this in the past anyways. After thinking it through, he made a gesture. The disciples understood his intention and came over.”-Chapter 10, Arrogance Part 5

We’re currently in JC’s POV. He has no reason to make things up in his head. His disciples also clearly help him capture demonic cultivators. HE LITERALLY FUCKING ADMITS TO HAVING DONE THIS BEFORE, TO THE POINT WHERE NO ONE WOULD CARE IF HE TOOK ‘MXY’ BACK TO LP, AND DO ALL KINDS OF THINGS TO HIM. But if people still need more proof.

“Everyone in the cultivation world knew that the young leader of the Jiang Clan watched out for Wei WuXian in an almost crazed manner. He would rather catch the wrong person than let go of any possibility, and took anyone who seemed like they held the soul of Wei WuXian away to the YunmengJiang Sect, inflicting severe torture on his victim. If he wanted to take someone back, the opposition would surely lose half of their life.” Chapter 10, Arrogance Part 5.

JC is a powerful sect leader! No one would dare spread false rumors about him! So why do these exist? Some more;

“Lan SiZhui tried to reason with him, “Young Master Mo, it was for your sake that HanGuang-Jun brought you here. If you do not follow us, Sect Leader Jiang will not be willing to let the matter go. During these years, there were countless people whom he caught and took back to Lotus Pier, and none of those people were ever let out.’... “Lan JingYi spoke, “That is right. You have seen Sect Leader Jiang’s methods, have you not? They are quite cruel…’”-Chapter 11, Refinement Part One

These are GusuLan disciples. Speaking about things that are false/spreading false rumors is forbidden! A strict no-no! As much as I love Petty!LWJ, even if it was about someone he hated, LWJ would correct the juniors if he believed/knew they were false! That’s his nature. But he doesn’t. Some more proof;

“Jin Ling replied with an ‘oh,’ and his footsteps faded into the distance. Seeing Jiang Cheng turn around, Wei WuXian immediately pulled a mixed expression of “I’m so shocked,” “my secret has been disclosed,” and “what do I do now that Wen Ning had been found.” Jin Ling was actually quite clever. Knowing that Jiang Cheng hated Wen Ning more than anything, he made up such a smooth lie with the previous knowledge he had. Jiang Cheng knew that the YiLing Patriarch and the Ghost General often appeared together, so he already suspected that Wen Ning was in the area. Having heard Jin Ling’s words, he was already mostly convinced, and Wei WuXian’s expression convinced him even further. On top of that, he burst into fury whenever he heard the mention of Wen Ning’s name. With his eyes blinded by wrath, how could he still have doubted?”

If JC really didn’t torture people to death, why the hell would JL feel the need to save ‘MXY’? This is JC’s own fucking nephew, why the hell would JL doubt him? Oh wait, let me guess. Maybe it’s because he actually does do that!

Some more, if they still don’t believe;

“Jin Ling, ‘It’s not the first time my uncle did such a thing. He has never let any of them go, even if it was possible that he caught the wrong ones.’”

What is not clicking? JC tortures them so badly, JL feels the need to save him!!! This is JC’s own motherfucking nephew. Someone who knows JC, and spends time at LP. He’s very clearly heard JC do this before.

Some more proof;

Here, I couldn’t find the actual chapter, but when JC’s own people are afraid of him, and genuinely believe he tortures demonic cultivators. (If you know the chapter, would you mind listing which it is?). But anyway, there’s also a quote where the screams of the tortured people can be heard in LP. People are so scared of JC, they can’t even ask the sect for help with reeenful energy problems! Quite telling, no?

Thus, this concludes my ‘JC really did torture people for 13 years’.

Yeah, it’s a whole thing. It’s quite a study in willful blindness, seeing people insist that it was just rumours and JC never did anything like torturing people to death. Like... they have to be actively ignoring every scene where the matter comes up to say with such confidence that JC is innocent of the thing that every piece of evidence we get says he’s guilty of.

[miyu-hyperfixates]

About Jin Guangyao & Nie Huaisang

Recently I have been thinking about JGY and NHS’s dynamics and about how JGY never saw NHS coming even though he knew that NHS was smarter than he looked like.

One of the reason is of course arrogance and pride. But, I think that in JGY’s defense NHS might as well be his worst natural enemy. If a blind spot had a form then JGY’d would be distinctively NHS-shaped. And here’s why:

《 Their core personality traits and beliefs 》

While JGY is very familiar with acting weak, vulnerable and so on to manipulate his ennemies (both from a physical and emotional point of view), he had never not even once appeared less smart than he truly was.

I think it never even occurred to him that people would act dumb (in the long term) or incompetent to deceive people because it clashes fundamentally with his whole existence.

Think about it. If JGY had shown less competence than he had, would he have managed to attract the attention of NMJ and be promoted (regardless of how bullied he was)?

If JGY had been anything short of super-competent would he manage to enter the rank of WRH? If he had not managed to prove himself and maintain such level of hyper-competency would he manage to keep playing spy by WRH and staying alive ?

If JGY had not been so convincing would he manage to kill WRH and crawl his way to his father’s grace? And even then, if he had shown the slightest amount of failure or incompetency he probably would have been kicked out of Jinlintai. If he had not maintain that high-competency could he manage to keep his position as chief cultivator?

For JGY incompetency and failure to do his designated jobs doesn’t just mean a small wound to his pride. No most of the time for most of his life it meant death or being kicked out.

So for someone who lived such a high-strung and stressful life, where his next breath, his next warm meal was entirely reliant on how competent he was at his job... how could it ever occur to him that someone could act incompetent on purpose?

Maybe if it had been for a short time then he might have been suspicious and notice but NHS acted this way for 10+ years... who would willingly lower themselves that way for so long, especially if they had the weight of a whole sect on their shoulders?

This is just fundamentally clashing with who he is as a person that it is no matter NHS could sneak on his blind spot. One of JGY biggest mistake was probably not to realize that having no ambition doesn’t mean not having any motivation.

《 JGY’s bias towards the elite 》

I thing JGY had encountered a certain amount of smart/competent/strong people in his life. And while he is naturally weary of physically strong people, he probably view them as less threatening than smart people.

Likewise even among the smart, he probably differentiate between ‘book smart’ and ‘street smart’. Of which JGY stands easily at the top of both. However the kind of smart that’d allow you to survive/thrive is definitely the street kind.

Even if he were aware of the fact that NHS hid his intelligence and cunning, he’d probably expect it to lie within the realm of “book-smartness” and not even the useful kind but the ‘useless’ kind of intelligence directed towards poetry, arts etc.

So of course how could this pampered young master, whose hardest struggle growing up had been on thinking how not to get drag on the training field by his big brother, ever be able to compete with JGY in term of street smartness?   Comparatively WWX and XY, because of their background, make way more of a threat than NHS could ever be in JGY’s mind. And that’s because he grew up prejudiced towards the rich and the elite.

《 NHS & JGY are two different types of masterminds 》

If you’re familiar with TV tropes and especially the Gambit tropes then I’d describe JGY’s plans as strongly lying in the Xanatos Gambit areas (with now and then a hint of Batman Gambit). Basically what it means, is that JGY is the type of mastermind who plays chess. He’ll look at all the outcomes and try to plot things so that no matter what outcome ends up happening he’d still win one way or another.

And while he can more or less improvise when things go sideway, it’s pretty obvious that it is when he has to make hasty decisions that he tends to make a lot of mistakes. 

NHS’s plans are of the  Gambit Roulette kind. In other words, his plans mostly rely on luck and chance occurrence. He had absolutely no way of knowing that MXY would succeed in resurrecting WWX, and even if MXY did, NHS had no way of knowing that WWX would be curious enough to investigate the case of the possessed arm, he had no way of knowing if WWX and LWJ would manage to find all the other body parts and successfully find discriminating facts about JGY... 

So basically what NHS was doing was planning stuff one step at a time. He didn’t need to have a whole plot with thousands of contingencies, he just needed to be nearby where the whole chaos was and try to nudge things in the direction he wanted. Therefore... How could JGY possibly predict NHS’s moves when probably even NHS didn’t know what he would do at that time?

In other words, while JGY is busy analyzing and trying to predict other people’s moves like they were merely pawns on a chessboard...he can’t predict NHS’s move at all because NHS is playing a whole other game altogether.

NHS is basically playing Texas Hold’em Poker, with his two starting cards being WWX and LWJ... Then he’d look at the cards start to appear one by one (calculating the odds, weighing whether he’d be able to get a good combinaison throwing chips here and there to bluff his way out), and hoping that at the end he’d get a better hand than JGY.

So yeah that’s probably why JGY never really stood a chance against NHS.

And while we’re on the game analogy, I’d like to make an aside here to talk about the juniors, who are probably NHS’s natural enemies (just as NHS is JGY’s).... They’re like those wild joker cards that keeps randomly popping for no reasons whatsoever, causing mayhem and chaos ... [especially Jin Ling haha]... And you’re not really sure if they are helping or making everything worse. And so NHS’s approach to dealing with those unknown wild cards was like “If you’re going to cause trouble and pop up anyway, then rather than having you appear out of nowhere and ruin everything, I’ll be the one to lead you there so that you stop surprising me!”

[I hc that this is one of the main reason NHS lured the juniors to Yi City, because he didn’t want to get blindsided by them popping out of nowhere and nearly dying again... like that time at Mo village or in Qinghe... (And he was probably laughing his ass off at JGY, when Jin Ling randomly appeared at the temple and he probably was like “See? That’s why you fail at masterminding! Always expect a dumbass kid with no self-preservation skills whatsoever to appear when you expect it the less!”)]

[stellahibernis]

Lan Wangji: Simply Blue

AKA Lan Wangji’s costumes in the Untamed, part 5/9

Now it’s the turn of the second mainly blue costume, which is the simplest of all the outfits Lan Wangji wears during the series. Bit of a blessing, since it was really hard getting good screencaps that show the outfit, but the simplicity means I didn’t need that many😉. On the other hand, I have several sad faces in my folder because of reasons.

He wears this outfit in episodes 25 to 29, and as always, I’ll first talk about the costume and then the context.

The Costume

This second blue costume is the least elaborate out of all his costumes in both shape and detail. Gorgeous fabrics are used once again, but they’re not textured the way his three earlier outfits had.

(Sidenote, it was impossible to get a capture where you could see the full outfit from front clearly in a neutral lighting 😤)

As we see, the silhouette is as basic as it gets, a robe closed with a sash, and the cuffs with the criss-crossing bands are one of Lan Wangji’s basics. It feels a lot more casual than any of his other outfits, with minimal tailoring and more loose and relaxed at the top.

Far as I can tell, the top robe is made of two layers of fabric; the fairly lightweight blue one, and a bit sturdier silvery one underneath. It seems they’re only stitched together at the collar and front down to waist, because we see the blue and silver fabrics move independently as he walks at the front and side slits. The layer underneath is unsurprisingly a white robe.

Coming to the details, first we might note that the cloud embroidery is present but relatively understated in this outfit, it’s at its usual place on his lapels but runs down only part of the way and in a narrow row, not covering the whole lapels. Second, even his sash is simpler than usual. Usually it’s been wider, with the layers of fabric crossing over each other, but this narrower blue one is just very simply wrapped around his waist.

I’ve pointed out previously how his outfits tend to especially shine during some of his key scenes. Often it has been in darkness, which makes sense since white is pretty great to light in those conditions, but they’ve also enhanced the effect with fabric choices (the matte white in the cave that was great with the warm fire, and the shiny white of his Sunshot campaign outfit which meant he basically glowed under the moonlight when they sat on the roof). Especially great with this particular outfit is that different aspects of it are enhanced by different lighting.

On top of this post is the daytime scene on Phoenix mountain, and under the sun the blue is at its best, giving LWJ a softer appearance than his more common whites do, especially combined with the simple and loose cut. And above, during the rainy night scene the silver next to the blue is absolutely gorgeous.

He also came with an accessory once again, an umbrella. Surely it’s just a coincidence that the black pattern on it looks much like the resentful energy Wei Wuxian summons with his flute.

The Context

Lan Wangji actually doesn’t care a bit about your hunting event, Jin Guangshao.

It’s so funny to me, when everyone last saw him, there was an actual war going on and he was wearing a super elaborate outfit that was so pristine white that anyone who looked at him probably saw afterimages, and now that it’s an event designed for showing off he comes in the least detailed outfit he can get away with. The thing is though, he doesn’t care about politics or the general showing off, he’s laser focused on one thing (one person, that is):

(Yes, it was absolutely necessary to have two images from this scene.)

Again, a blue outfit is an outward symbol of his priorities swinging toward Wei Wuxian rather than his sect, and this time it’s much more pronounced than during their search for the Yin Iron. It makes narrative sense for LWJ to dress simply, because it’s as big a difference compared to his previous outfit as he can have and still keep to the Lan Sect dress code. After WWX came back, even though they made up and got along well enough together, they still didn’t manage to fully connect, there was still a wall between them, and now LWJ is trying a different strategy. Now that the war is over and his sect safe as ever, he can with a good conscience (albeit probably not in the eyes of his uncle) take a visible distance to his identity as the Second Jade of Lan and try to signal his priorities to WWX.

It’s very obvious from the start of the hunting event; as soon as they leave for the forest, LWJ doesn’t stay with his own sect but goes looking for WWX. It’s obvious in the way he asks, who he is to WWX, and affirming that he doesn’t consider their connection a thing of the past. He’s holding a door open, and it almost works, too. We see WWX contemplate his flute, as if deciding whether to confide in LWJ, and I think he even might have, had they not been interrupted. It’s very characteristic to all of their interactions while LWJ is in this outfit, there’s always a turn for worse, something of an outside influence or they meet an internal barrier they just can’t breach.

While LWJ is very persistently trying to reach WWX, he’s also perhaps the most conflicted during these episodes. His upbringing is waging a war against what his heart wants, and during this time frame he can’t resolve that battle. When WWX distances himself from the norms of the cultivation world, the conflict just gets more difficult for LWJ. It’s impossible for him to let go of WWX, but it’s equally impossible for him to leave his family and what he’s been brought up to be, and at this point in time he also doesn’t see any way to resolve the problem that would allow him to fulfill both those needs, and so he’s left in between.

At this point in the story it’s very visible how the difference in their upbringing affects the choices of LWJ and WWX. In principle, they agree that the way the Wens are treated is wrong, but LWJ has been brought up to rely on the rules rather than on his heart, to rely on the established structures of the world and to think of them as the right, and we know his uncle was and is extremely strict about it too. At the time, he’s still a teenager, and it would be practically impossible for him to let go of all that, when the only thing telling him different is his heart that he’s always been taught to not rely on, lest he become like his father. Meanwhile, WWX spent his first years with rogue cultivators and after that some time alone on the street, and those experiences most likely left him very little will to trust the establishment. Even after he’d been brought into Jiang Sect, he was still allowed to question and to not follow the rules, and so for him it’s the natural choice to follow the voice of his heart and his consciousness, even though it means breaking a promise to his sect brother.

And here is the last we see of this outfit, LWJ kneeling for a long time. I’m pretty confident in saying that no matter how long, it doesn’t really work as a punishment since he doesn’t actually regret going to Yiling.

Next we get to my favorite outfit, and more heartbreak on the side. I’m still undecided what the title for that part should be, I’m currently leaning on “everything is awful but at least he looks good,” or is that too long?

You can read the other parts of this series on my blog’s “lwj costume series” tag, and there is also a link on my blog contents page. I’d put a link here but we know how this site is with those.

[missholland]

“Shouldn’t I hate you? Can’t I hate you?”

“Why do you treat me like a fool?”

Jiang Cheng tearfully asked his adopted brother, and we could all feel the pain in his voice. He must have held on to these wonders for a very long time, even beyond the past 16 years when WWX was presumably dead.

JC grew up with WWX, and despite a rough start of having his puppies sent away, the two truly became close as a little JC promised to chase dogs away for WWX. I don’t have a brother, so I can’t personally relate to what it’s like living with one. I guess the fact that JC and WWX are same age supposedly make them best friends too. Male friends rarely sit down and talk about their feelings, let alone young men like these two. 

From the very beginning, we get to know JC as the more disciplined one and constantly looks out to make sure WWX does not cause any trouble. That makes a lot of sense, since JC bares the heavy responsibility of being the next Jiang clan leader, on top of enduring his father’s tough love and his mother’s unpleasantness toward WWX. For those who instantly fell in love with WWX’s free spirit, JC comes across as a massive killjoy.

Just think about it, the two did quarrel quite often growing up, as boys do. I’m not sure when it started, but WWX eventually develops a habit of not telling JC things. He could be seen regularly dismissing JC whenever the latter asks him a question. We got to see this several times during their studies at Cloud Recesses, and it’s likely JC justified it as WWX’s newly developed attention to LWJ. JC’s envy cannot be anymore obvious - from his rolling eyes every time WWX is around LWJ to snarky comments like ‘You’re so close to LWJ now, just stay in Cloud Recesses and don’t bother coming back to Lotus Pier’. As much as we all ship young WangXian, wouldn’t you be really upset if you were in JC’s position?

JC has a lot more to lose than WWX - his family, his clan’s reputation. Considering how his father tended to maintain a passive position whenever it comes to clan politics, JC would follow through with the stay-out-of-trouble mindset and prefer as least attention as possible during chaos. Unfortunately, that’s not how WWX operates. He simply cannot stand idly by when someone is in trouble. There is no such thing as ‘those irrelevant’ to him. If the weak is being bullied, he will step in to help in a heartbeat. This is why WWX is MUCH better off being a free agent like Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan. Once you live that major clan life, every step you take and every move you make represent your sect, not just yourself, no matter how many times you keep saying ‘Hey, you can slander me, but not Yunmeng Jiang clan’. JC knows this very well, and in his head he has to be the adult/bad cop to WWX as there is really no choice.

There is nothing wrong with having that ethos. JC just has completely different priority comparing to WWX, and that’s what he based on when making decision. JC’s intention has always been about protecting WWX, even after the event in Qiongqi Way. The reason for the downfall of their relationship comes from both sides: JC doesn’t know how to ask, and WWX doesn’t want to answer. Maybe because JC keeps go on and on about WWX better not bringing trouble to Jiang clan, WWX finds it more difficult to confine in him with his problems and eventually not tell him at all. Or, deep down, WWX already knows JC treasures completely different values. Hence, it is no use to share this sort of thing with him. That is obviously different from his experience with LWJ, as they made the same promise in front of Master Lan Yi in the cold cave and under the rabbit lantern. All of the above, in addition to JC not being conversationally gifted, keep the brothers further and further away until their misunderstanding becomes too deep to resolve.

I’m not team JC, but I feel for him when it comes to holding on to things. He remembers stuff and doesn’t let go easily. So when his adopted brother said ‘I will be your subordinate and assist you for life when you become clan leader’, that promise meant a lot more to him than the person who made (and broke) it. Besides, JC already lost his parents. With his sister getting married, he was practically all alone in rebuilding Lotus Pier and WWX’s help was supposed to be his greatest asset. 

But all he received in return is a flaky assistant who became depressed, drank all day, nowhere to be found when needed and just seem to give up life in general. JC probably considered him already having too much go on, and it’s just easier for him to scold others instead of holding back for one second to think ‘What happened to him? I need to find out and sort him out!’. We all know how everything went down after that, and it really echoes what JGY said to JC in episode 49: ‘If you had treated WWX better, none of this would have happened’.

Honestly, JC doesn’t deserve to be treated like a fool, which was what WWX kinda did to him. He started telling all of his burdens revolving WWX, from how WWX had always been winning in everything - from talent to chivalry, from the affection of their father/sister to the cost of their own lives. But that’s not the point. JC was aware of all that, but he was definitely never jealous of WWX’s qualities in a negative way. JC did not care about any of that, as long as WWX remained his loyal best friend/brother. 

This is where his actual deepest frustration unfolded - ‘What hardship could you not tell me’ is the most haunting question I’ve heard. JC knew there was a reason, but could not figure out why he was not the one WWX went to for help. He was getting to that point when capturing WWX in Qinghe, asking why WWX went elsewhere rather than Lotus Pier once he was resurrected. As ridiculous that question might be (I mean, would your first point of contact after coming back to life be the person who wanted to kill you before?), it was the confused and desperate little brother inside Jiang clan leader’s hard ass cover crying for answer from his former best friend/brother.

If there was ever any jealousy inside JC, I would think it gotta be toward LWJ. Sure, the closeness with WWX is one thing, but it’s weird to compare your brotherhood to.... you know, romantic/spiritual soulmate-level bond. I might be stretching this, but it just seems to me JC is somewhat envious of how LWJ can confidently (maybe, in his head, blindly) stand by WWX post-resurrection. 

The whole ‘oh you’ve been everywhere for 16 years looking for someone’ comment - I mean really JC, weren’t you doing the same too? The dirty look he gave LWJ when he took out Bichen and pointed toward Jin Clan’s guards to protect WWX at Jinlintai, when LWJ stood next to WWX against the cultivation world at Burial Mounds, when LWJ remained by WWX at Lotus Pier’s doorstep and even willing to wait OUTSIDE with him, when LWJ was taken to offer some incense to his family, and when LWJ still fiercely shielded WWX while having his spiritual power sealed at Guanyin Temple.

Deep down JC never stops loving his brother, but he’s just not willing to let go of the past. And sadly, he has probably never really believed in WWX anyway. A lot of people may not be able to stan JC, but it’s still heart-breaking regardless thinking about how his relationship with WWX deteriorates through time. I guess the only comforting thing is that by the end of the series, both of them can move on with their lives. And hopefully, whenever they think of each other, it’s only with the good memories of sitting together eating shijie’s lotus soup.

[peridot-tears]

If LWJ had jumped off the cliff too, and WWX met Madam Lan

I am falling to my death.

Shijie.

I am falling to my death.

What did his sister think when her eyes closed? Panic? Relief, that she saved her little brother? Or fear?

Would that I could. I would take all that fear from you. And he put the thought away. What did it matter how Shijie felt in her last moments, when he had made her suffer, and now she was gone?

Besides, he thought, with his eyes closed. He was already halfway to joining her.

Would that he could.

.

For once in his life, Lan Wangji did not think. Bichen like a single wing in his hand, he flew. He flung himself from the cliff.

我陪你。

无愧于心。

In his peripherals, the spray of his own blood. In his tunnel vision, Wei Ying. Yes. Tunnel vision, towards Wei Ying. Nothing could attack him from the sides, anyway. His bleeding did not matter. He would not bleed to death tonight.

Wei Ying was so, so far. Lan Wangji reached inside himself for the spherical power undulating unbidden in his center; it moved still. He had energy yet. He gripped that spiritual energy tight, by the throat, and drew it into the wind.

Wei Ying once said that 妖魔鬼怪 were akin to the life and death of a tree. Lan Wangji was now a ship, with a sail. And he was streaking downwards, towards the achingly distant shape of a man.

Wei Ying.

His spiritual energy sputtered, then burst into a speed that threw him down towards Wei Ying. His black shape slowly became larger, and larger, till Lan Wangji reached out a hand and brushed his red ribbon.

More. He needed more.

Throttling the center of himself, he drew out the last desperate breaths of his spiritual energy; with one last burst, he closed the distance between himself and Wei Ying. The core of himself burned, but with a cry of relief, he wrapped Wei Ying’s body in his arms.

.

The name is on the tip of his tongue, and he opens his mouth to exhale it. But he finds that he cannot.

This is such a long fall, but Lan Zhan will not...Lan Zhan won’t—

Just let me die. Wei Ying’s tears are coming again, and the dull throb of his heartbeat has sharpened, is ripping him open from the inside out.

If mere moments and one blackness ago, Lan Zhan’s lips were pinched with the most obstinate look Wei Wuxian has ever seen, then one return to the world later, his face is soft and clear.

I can’t bring you down with me, Wei Wuxian thinks, panicking. He regrets opening his eyes, because he is not yet dead, and now Lan Zhan...he...

“Wei Ying,” he says, more gently than anyone has said his name in days.

Wei Wuxian finally manages to press Lan Zhan’s name out of his throat, though he cannot hear it in the gush of falling around them. He feels the name move the bones in his skull. He wants to tell him to go, but where could he go?

“I am coming with you,” Lan Zhan responds. “Without any regret in my heart.”

.

Wei Ying’s round eyes are blasted open with shock and pleading. His body is pulsing with blood and life.

Let it stay that way.

Lan Wangji tears his gaze away to look beneath them, at the ground materializing into nearness. Bichen trembles in his hand, and he is unsure if it is something in the sword spirit calling him, or the pulse of his own life. He twitches his palm, his fingers, and wills Bichen to listen: if he has one last request in the world—anything—then it would be Wei Ying’s safety.

Bichen loyally unsheathes itself. It matches their pace, tucking itself under Lan Wangji’s feet, killing their descent.

The ground stops rushing up so quickly to meet them.

Lan Wangji is waning, but he is flying Bichen now, both arms wrapped tight around Wei Ying’s waist.

Like a carriage jerked to a halt too quickly, Bichen stops just above the cold, hard ground. Lan Wangji tumbles into its embrace, but not before he rolls into his landing, softening the fall enough so Wei Ying will only feel a bump.

Safe.

Bichen retreats into his sheath at his unspoken command, and that is all he has the strength left to do.

.

Lan Zhan is on top of Wei Wuxian, pressing the breath out of him. His gaze searches him so much, Wei Wuxian feels like he is standing on that rooftop all over again.

Then, with an exhale, he collapses against his shoulder.

With the warmth of his weight on top of him, Wei Wuxian does not know how long he is down there, stunned, alive, crying. He clutches at Lan Zhan’s body. He wants to scream, but loses any desire to. He thinks the sky is too far away. He wants it to come down and bury him.

In the middle of the tears, of counting each spot in the sky where there should be a star, Lan Zhan’s heart beats against his. It is like a spark against flint.

“Lan Zhan,” he croaks, barely hearing his own whisper. “Lan Zhan.” Why did you save me, Lan Zhan?

He has been cursed with good instinct from birth—though it wasn’t good enough to save Yu Furen, or Shijie—and he knows that Jiang Cheng will climb down here to looking for them, even if he must turn Zidian into a rope and climb with each agonizing handful of lightning. He would kill Wei Wuxian. That is fine. But who knows if he would take anything out on Lan Wangji?

Wei Wuxian hefts Lan Zhan’s weight off of himself. He surprises even himself with the strength left in him, rolling him onto his back and brushing his own hair out of his eyes. Jiang Cheng can have him. Jiang Cheng should have him.

But no one should have Lan Zhan.

.

Lan Wangji would not blame Wei Ying if he left him beneath that cliff.

He left Wei Ying all by himself outside of Xuanwu Dong, after having sung him to sleep. He was sick, and delirious, and Lan Wangji left him to wake up alone. It must have been like waking up in a cold bed.

It was the right thing to do at the time. But if only he knew what would come after, how he would encounter Wei Ying next. And the next time. And the next.

His decisions had all been right. But the wrong thing could also be right.

He wakes up to the sensation of swaying.

It is akin to waking up after his first ever taste of alcohol. Wei Ying was there that night, too. They woke up together. He wishes he could see the way he burst into laughter in the late-morning sunlight, almost noon. He wishes Wei Ying could smile as sharply as that light again. But when all is said and all is done, he has granted himself his own wish. Wei Ying is alive.

He wakes up on Wei Ying’s back.

.

Lan Zhan’s breath is soft on his neck. Wei Wuxian wishes he wouldn’t wake up like this. He wants him to stay asleep until he is healed, and then never see Wei Wuxian again, because by then Wei Wuxian would finally have killed himself. And this time, he wouldn’t even have to see it and blame himself for not saving him in time.

“You’re awake,” he says.

Lan Zhan’s next breath carries the trace of a grunt. His throat bobs against Wei Wuxian’s hair as he exhales.

“Don’t try to talk,” Wei Wuxian says. Truthfully, he is telling himself this too. He should be mourning, so where is the energy to even open his mouth coming from?

Thankfully, Lan Zhan obeys, but he still breathes down his neck like a relaxed predator. Wei Wuxian should not feel so hunted, he thinks, until he realizes that there is nowhere to go. No one in the world would allow a criminal into their inn, much less the Yiling Laozu, who killed Jin Zixuan, who killed millions. Why, even his own sister—

Lan Zhan needs you right now, he thinks.

It is incredible, how long he can follow the rocks of the very bottom of Bu Ye Tian and not get caught. He walks until his feet ache as much as his chest, and then keeps walking.

He walks and walks until the land thickens into trees.

It starts to rain. Nevernight turns to night. Night turns to day. Turns back into night.

He keeps walking.

—

He is brought back to a certain other night, when he decided to walk back into hell to save a handful of innocents. And they later died. I wonder, would Lan Zhan die too? he thinks idly. Well, no. No, he won’t let that happen. Not again. Which is exactly what he declared to the world the last time.

Lan Zhan is unconscious again. Wei Wuxian lays him down under the eaves of the abandoned lean-to, thankful that nowhere else in the world is there wind as merciless as that in Luan Zang Gang. He kindles a small fire and bandages Lan Zhan’s arm.

Even after a battle, exhausted to death, Lan Zhan’s face is the smoothest cut of white jade. It is like the moon—could provide light even in the dark. Wei Wuxian traces a finger along his cheek, his jaw, and marvels at his own hands. They are trembling.

The irony is not lost to him. That he is the one very much breathing and moving—jittering, even—while Lan Zhan is sleeping like the dead. The whiplash of being alive is so repetitive.

His throat works. He hums to himself, then scrapes a leaf off the side of the lean-to. For all the sick feelings in his stomach at the thought of mouthing Chenqing again, he places the leaf under his lips. Its whistle is different from Chenqing’s. There is no power, just the vibrations of something that is still green.

This is what he has been reduced to, he supposes.

The song is nameless, but he knows it.

How long have I been alive? he chants to himself. He threads these words into the tune he plays, giving them lyrics. He wonders if Lan Zhan ever gave them lyrics. He threads that name into the harmony, too.

.

Lan Wangji opens his eyes to the sound of something that should be played on the earthy tones of his guqin. It has been turned into something more high and unreachable.

The first thing he thinks is that he does not hurt as much as he should, that his arm must be bleeding, and that it is rainy and cold.

But Wei Ying.

Their song is in the air. He twists his head in a ginger, delicate motion to see Wei Ying’s exhausted, pale visage, and that one pop of green against his lips.

He finds no need to speak.

.

Wei Wuxian has played the song at least three times before he decides to check up on Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan stares back.

“You’re awake,” he says. There should not be as much emotion in those words as there is.

“Mn.” Wei Wuxian doesn’t like how he’s responding. He’s looking at him as though he is the one lying barely conscious, and Lan Zhan is the one playing this song for him.

“Go back to sleep,” Wei Wuxian says. “The more you rest, the sooner you’ll get better. And then you can go back home, and tell your Shufu and brother that I took you away against your will. You can even take credit for killing me, if you want. After this, you’ll never see me again.”

“I will not leave you.”

Then I’ll leave you, but what’s meant to be a secret then leaves his mouth.

Lan Zhan is steadfast. “Where will you go?”

Wherever Shijie is. So I can say sorry.

Wei Wuxian elects to spread himself open. Where other people curl into a defensive ball, he lays himself on the ground, a child of earthly affairs.

反正天大地大，四海为家。

“The world is big,” he says, “and wherever I go, I can make it into a home. That’s what happened in Luan Zang Gang, but I don’t want to go back.”

But where else do I belong now?

.

Lan Wangji opens his mouth, but Wei Ying has frozen in time. There is not a physical whiff of smoke around him, but he shakes, leaf dropping from his grip. His lips move, as he has conversations with someone who died in a cruel fashion a long time ago.

“Wei Ying,” he calls.

His eyes are glazed over. Lan Wangji has seen this before.

“Wei Ying,” he calls again. With Jiang Yanli out of the world now, and out of wherever the ghosts possessing Wei Ying live—a person like her meets death with a greeting and a bowl of soup—only Lan Wangji has a flicker of hope in keeping him here.

He scrambles to lift himself, winces when he uses his injured arm, then heaves himself upright with core strength alone.

Grabbing Wei Ying’s arm is like touching a hot stone: In a flash meant to repel, it burns him. He should jolt and jump away, but instead clutches harder. He says his name again.

How long has Wei Ying been walking to bring them both out of the reach of the cultivation world? Where are they now? How long has he gone without sleep, when he should have stopped to grieve?

Wei Ying finally, finally takes enough breaths to find himself, finally has the space of mind to turn his head enough for Lan Wangji to realize how bloodshot his eyes are.

With one last shudder, he collapses.

.

魏无羡你想报仇吗？

Revenge? On whom? Himself?

Shijie does not belong on a battlefield. In another life, one where she could be as strong in body as she is in mind, she would be the best. She would beat anyone as easily as Yu Furen and her handmaids. When she is reincarnated, in her 来生，heaven will be kinder to her, because if not to her, then whom?

So why is she here, dressed in white for her own funeral?

There is a whisper she is trying to pass onto him, and the hand on Wei Wuxian’s cheek is already cold from lack of blood. Instead, she shoves him aside. She dies instantly.

That blade was meant for me.

It should have been me.

Jiang Fengmian should never have taken him in. He killed his daughter. Wei Wuxian should have been left to die on the streets.

Do you want revenge?

I want to die.

The voices have faces. Every one of them is Jiang Yanli. Such hateful words should not come from her mouth. He wants to raise Chenqing to the voices, but then, he would have to raise it to her.

He dreams of falling. Luan Zang Gang calls him. Come back, say the ones who gave him Chenqing. Don’t you want revenge?

When he hits the ground again, no longer able to see the sky, Shijie reaches a hand out. She does not belong here, either. “Go,” he tells her. “Go—”

Don’t touch her, he screams at the spirits. Listen to me. You promised, you promised.

Shijie raises one gentle hand to his cheek. He is too afraid to lean into her touch.

“—Ying!”

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