#past nieyao

[wangxianficrecs]

Casual Happenstance by Belzime

Casual Happenstance

by Belzime

T, WIP, 9k, Background Wangxian

Summary: After breaking up with ex-fiance Meng Yao, Nie Mingjue moves into a new apartment and gets pulled into friendship with the toddler down the hall and his single mother, Jiang Yanli. - “Are you going to stand here and argue with me or are you going to move out of the way so I can set this down?” Her face brooks no room for challenge. “Good, now step aside.” She sweeps past him and finds a space on his countertop for it. “There.” She turns around, hand brushing over Baxia’s head as the dog circles her knees. “Do you have any food allergies? Anything you can’t eat? You’re not vegetarian? Are you alright with spices?” ‘A little odd to ask after you’ve already bullied me into taking it,’ he thinks and says instead, “I eat just about anything.” He watches her relax and realizes she'd been worried, “Oh good.” She says, “I tried to make it a little more mild than usual; last time I made this soup I found out my brother-in-law was vegetarian and has terrible acid reflux. My A-Xian wouldn’t stop laughing, knew the whole time no shame or sympathy for not telling me!” Kay's comments: A very cute and fluffy modern AU with a friendship that I haven't seen explored in fanfic often: Nie Mingjue and Jiang Yanli! Nie Mingjue has recently broken up with Meng Yao and Jiang Yanli is Jin Ling's single mother in this. Jin Zixuan is alive, but there is drama, which I love, because yeah, I want to have Xuanli explored as a broken relationship too!) So, Nie Mingjue and Jiang Yanli! They strike up an unlikely friendship and Nie Mingjue helps out with Jin Ling and there's also some background Wangxian. Very adorable story! Excerpt: He knows her ex is a horribly awkward person, he assumes he knows where they live though Yanli has said he’s never been there. He isn’t going to do anything. It’s not his place to intrude. He’s going to see Xichen, doesn’t want to be late when the man shows up chronically twenty minutes early. But he can’t help brushing a little too close past the man on the way to the elevator. The man startles, turning towards Mingjue and revealing himself. “Mingjue-ge.” The man says and he’s never been easy to read, but the slightly rushed way in which his name came out and complete lack of change in facial expression screams to a specific horror Mingjue has spent most of his life trying to decipher from a different face. “Wangji?!” He chokes out, betrayal punching deep below Mingjue’s diaphragm. Wangji is VERY gay and certainly cannot be capable of having a child only to abandon him? He’s adopting, for Gods’ sake! “Mingjue-da-ge!” another voice shouts as a body drapes itself around Wangji’s shoulders and back. “What are you doing here?” The new man beams. He drops something into Wangji’s hand and Mingjue watches as his best friend’s baby brother’s ears turn bright red when their fingers brush, face unmoving. “Wei Ying.” He greets and motions down the hall, “I live here.”

modern setting, jiang yanli, nie mingjue, modern no powers, pov nie mingjue, dog baxia, single parent jiang yanli, family drama, background character death, hospitalization, domestic fluff, fluff, past nieyao, past xuanli, child jin ling, trauma, neighbors, friendship, misunderstandings

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

[sweetlittlevampire]

In which Lan Wangji reflects about the concept of family.

Now with an added playlist in the n/a and end notes! ♥

[benevolenterrancy]

the first of many betrayals (nmj is willing to throw other people to the wolves (his little brother) if it means he's not the one being immediately pestered)

[mostlikelytofangirl]

Summary: After a car accident, a concussion leaves Nie Mingjue with his memories intact except for one key detail. He can't remember anything about his relationship with his husband Jin Guangyao.

However, he's not left without any feelings on the matter. It just so happens that the only thing he feels towards that other man is distrust and resentment.

Now Guangyao is tasked with caring for his husband while trying to get him to remember that they used to love each other. He may or may not succeed.

Relationship: Nieyao.

Characters: Jin Guangyao, Nie Mingjue

Rating: T (mentions of violence).

My entry for Nieyao week 2023 at twitter. This memory loss/past lives plot bunny had been in my head for a while, and day 6 was just perfect: crying, reincarnation, modern AU.

Angst with a happy ending tho. They are gonna go through a rough spot but both are stubborn and my own happiness depends on theirs :')

[valodia]

[guqin-and-flute]

ALRIGHT. I've decided. I have officially moved Holding Me Holding You to my finished 3zun AU documents! 🌈✨🎉

Narratively, I'm too pleased with the full circleness of this last chapter to have this be anything but the end of this particular fic. The comfort--THE IMMEDIATE, NOT REALLY TIME SKIPPED COMFORT, I PROMISE YOU I'M FIXING IT--will now be in the next fic because it will structurally be different and serve a different narrative purpose in the overarching story.

I hope no one feels bait and switched by me having labeled this as hurt/comfort initially as the comfort doesn't really balance it, but I'll try to rectify the tags on Ao3 to reflect the journey the fic took!

I'm SO fucking happy and proud that I finished my first long form, multi chapter fic. It's a goal I've struggled to achieve my whole writing life (which started in like 2nd grade). I have honestly never officially finished a long term writing project. I wasn't sure I could do it (mostly for ADHD reasons but also others, as well). So closing this off here is proof to myself that I CAN. It took uhhh several years but I can!

I may look back and be less than happy with pacing or structure, sooner or later, but what's important to me right now is the proof that I did it.

The comfort and Nieyao meeting A-Fu fic will be set at most a week later (as A-Yao and Da-ge will get moving pretty quick once they hear the news that oops they have a son) and will be a multi perspective, h/c, what-happens-next fic. It will have some angst because it's 3zun (and middays 3zun, at that) but nowhere NEAR the level of Holding Me Holding You. I mean for it to be a softer recovery, where are we at now fic.(Also probably much shorter but I know better than to promise THAT anymore 😭)

Thank you so much for all of your continued support and love of this AU! Your tags, your comments, your asks, your theories, art, and ideas are all huge boosts to keeping me going. The fact that you read and like it at all is still so, so awesome to me.

I intend to finish my streak of finishing long form chapter docs and this is the first step of doing it, which is oddly healing from past internal narratives I've assumed about myself and my abilities. I'm gonna finish what I have planned in these AUs, damnit!!

So thank you for coming along with me this far and I hope to see you at the finish line! ❤️

[prince-liest]

MORE nieyao omegaverse shenanigans!!!

please imagine a nieyao (or 3zun) ABO AU where jin guangyao is an omega and is constantly taking scent-blockers. not because he's hiding the fact that he's an omega - that pigeon flew the coop a long time ago and it certainly isn't helping his standing in jinlintai, unfortunately - but because he's violently allergic to the very concept of broadcasting his feelings to everyone in jinlintai, all of the time, via scent.

he's not even the only one! it's not uncommon for people to be on scent-blockers in jinlintai for this exact reason. it's not amazing for politicking to be physically incapable of maintaining a pheromonal poker face when someone says something that you just vehemently disagree with! besides, it's rude to make people deal with your emotions all the time like that. not to mention the reputation jin-zongzhu has around omegas...

but it's very much a jin cultural thing that jin guangyao adopted after the sunshot campaign. other sects have their own ways about it, but the nie in particular maintain a sort of pride about their dynamics just as they do about their history as butchers, and to hide to that extent in the unclean realm is frequently assumed to be inherently dishonest. why would you use scent-blockers if you didn't have bad intentions?

(of course, many people use them anyway - milder ones, ones that change a scent rather than eliminating it entirely as jin politesse dictates, an extra layer of secrecy not just about the scent itself but the fact that what is being communicated is manufactured - but nie mingjue has never had to consider something like that.)

and thus this becomes one of the reasons that nie mingjue cannot reconcile jin guangyao with his perception of his former deputy, meng yao. the lack of scent - it makes jin guangyao seem cold, distant, fake - seemingly an entirely different person.

except.

at some point.

perhaps jin guangyao is off his blockers, or more likely, one day nie mingjue's alpha hindbrain has had enough of these oppositional shenanigans and simply locks onto jin guangyao, labeling him irrevocably as 'MATE!' in nie mingjue's brain and making him so much more sensitive to jin guangyao - likely without jin guangyao even realizing.

so now nie mingjue can suddenly tell, at least in the cases of stronger emotions, exactly what jin guangyao's body is trying to broadcast.

when he realizes what happened, he expects to detect... he's not even sure. smugness. irritation? maybe even hate.

what he gets is fear, and fear, and more fear. jin guangyao is just so scared, all of the time, that it drives almost everything else into non-existence as far as his pheromones are concerned. he simply never feels safe. it's so bad that it's giving nie mingjue a sympathy headache any time he's around his youngest sworn brother.

and perhaps at some point in the past, nie mingjue had even gotten into it with jin guangyao about the scent blockers - nie mingjue perceiving dishonesty vs jin guangyao feeling frustrated that once again da-ge is looking down on him for something that jin guangyao feels is imperative for his own safety - and jin guangyao had said that, well, nie mingjue accuses him of manipulation and lying so often anyway, how is he supposed to trust that if nie mingjue could smell anything that he wouldn't just assume it's part of jin guangyao's supposed manipulations anyway?

(it doesn't help jin guangyao's frustration that nie mingjue insists that hiding one's scent is dishonesty when, actually, jin guangyao could do with the oppressive 'angry alpha' that often layers all over the place on top of nie mingjue's already large physique and looming presence being toned down a little bit, thanks)

and nie mingjue was like, that's ridiculous, that's not something you can manually control (jin guangyao just smiled at him, the same way he smiles at nie huaisang when he thinks the young master is being naive) - except now he's realizing that maybe jin guangyao had at least a little bit of a point, in the sense that it turns out that it's actually really difficult to be righteously angry at someone who so vividly feels unsafe and afraid whenever you express that, in a way that jin guangyao's crocodile tears never got to him. he feels a sudden kindred spirit with lan xichen.

tl;dr: nobody gets kicked down any stairs, and nie mingjue is forcibly familiarized with what, exactly, jin guangyao's emotional perspectiive is at least, as well as finding himself curbing his own temper because yelling at someone who is smiling at you while circulating their spiritual energy to stop themselves from hyperventilating about it just. feels really bad. nie mingjue is used to feeling like he is in the right and he doesn't know what to do with this. he is right! but... surely being shown the righteous path shouldn't be making jin guangyao feel like this.

(and maybe nie mingjue picks up on the sudden spike of increased stress - and, wow, he didn't know that jin guangyao could be more stressed, isn't there a maximum? - when jin guangshan starts pressing his bastard son to 'take care' of the nie mingjue problem.)

[naysaltysalmon]

I'm trying to write the most NieYao-centric content on AO3

Will be updated as I go

Adolesco aeternum : 41K, E (blood/torture, attempted r*pe/noncon, bdsm/kink)

“Meng Yao, tell me, why should I trust the word of a traitorous dog?” Meng Yao steadies himself. “Because Clan Leader Nie and Clan Leader Jin humiliated me. And I sense His Excellency to be a man of a—different, higher caliber.” He isn’t so sure whether his words are lies anymore. “I can be of great service to you,” he says in earnest, lifting his face. –– Meng Yao is Wen Ruohan’s right-hand man; his head torturer; his confidante; and something… more. He fears it will end the same way: cast out and forgotten, broken and used, should his intentions ever be discovered. As it stands, Wen Ruohan is the keeper of his heart, his shining sun—his savior. And as the war rages on, Meng Yao becomes more unsure of where his true loyalties lie.

With my heart in the palm of your hand : 6.5K, E (bdsm/kink, sexual content, trauma)

Curious about the appeal of being submissive, Nie Mingjue asks Meng Yao to take control during sex. Meng Yao unveils more than he bargained for.

The ocean's face : 83K, E (r*pe/noncon, blood/torture, graphic violence, sexual content)

If Huaisang gives himself away now, Meng Yao thought, Clan Leader Nie will never forgive me. “You must be Wen Xu,” he forced himself to utter. His throat was parched, drier than the landscape, but from that strain he shook an accent deeper, defiant enough to be a young master of the Nie household. Wen Xu smiled at him coolly, walking closer. “Indeed I am,” the Wen heir confessed. “The same that laid waste to Cloud Recesses all those years ago.” He crouched down to be level with Meng Yao on the ground, an elbow on one knee, and smiled at him patronizingly. “All the good Clan Leader Nie’s intervention did to stop it. By which of course, I mean, none.” Meng Yao lurched forward threateningly. He did not have to feign the rage in his heart to solidify his attackers’ false deductions. -- Mistaken for Nie Huaisang, Meng Yao is kidnapped by the Wen. Nie Mingjue and Huaisang must justify going after him, though there are many in Qinghe and Qishan who believe Meng Yao is unworthy and replaceable. Nie Mingjue is determined to bring him home – but will Meng Yao be the same when he returns?

Bathtime : 6.7K, M (fluff, smut, slow-burn)

Meng Yao is eager to please his new superior. Nie Mingjue is the one who promoted him to his current position to be able to afford such luxuries, after all. When Clan Leader Nie makes it a habit for them to share a weekly bath, however, Meng Yao hesitates over the man’s true intentions all along.

Tracing the Bounds of Your Flames : 63K, E (dubcon, mild noncon, graphic violence)

Demonic cultivation demands a heavy toll from the heartiest souls. None recover, even when trained to combat its malefic influence since their youth. Nie Mingjue knows this well, yet Meng Yao can only see him as the enigmatic clan leader, the man with an exterior so cold he has no idea why Nie Mingjue saved his life at all. Ensnared in a discipline and authority that threatens to devour them both, will Meng Yao be able to let go of his past, or will he destroy everything he holds dear in the process of trying to gain control?

Within these Walls : 1.7K, E (dubcon)

Nie Mingjue gave Meng Yao his home, his life, his bed. But it wasn’t meant to last. He went too far – a mistake he would pay for the rest of his life.

Other MDZS:

Devotion : SongXueXiao, XueXiao & SongXiao focus, 2.8K, M

Song Lan and Xue Yang killed each other in Yi City. So Xiao Xingchen ventures into the underworld to find them.

Painting You : SangCheng, background NieYao, 10.7K, M

“What’s so stupid about it?” Huaisang snaps. “Every sect leader needs someone to help them run things, even my…” Even my brother, once. Jiang Cheng rounds on him. “Oh yeah? Then what about you? Now that you’re Sect Leader Nie, you’ll need to find yourself a wife.” Huaisang laughs. “Jiang-xiong, you should know I could never marry. Not a woman, at least.” He says it lightly, half expecting Jiang Cheng to laugh along with him, but Jiang Cheng’s back goes stiff as a rod. He leans visibly away. “What? You mean you’re a… a cut-sleeve?!” Huaisang guffaws, hoarse and loud. He bats his eyelashes, crested with tears, and rolls one shoulder toward Jiang Cheng as he snatches up his fan. “Why of course, Jiang-xiong. Surely, you already knew.” Apparently, Jiang Cheng did not already know.

Droplets on your qin : NieLan, 5.2K, M

It’s been a long time since Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue were able to catch up. They make the most of their time while they can.

I weep & say goodnight : SongXueXiao, SongXue focus, 4.6K, M

The world is ending, and Xue Yang is offered to the heavens as a sacrificial lamb. In his final moments, will he be able to live out his fantasy of sharing in death with his two most intimate adversaries, or will they all fade into nothing in the face of total annihilation?

[robininthelabyrinth]

AU where MY doesn't fight in the sunshot campaign but JGS sees the use of a bastard who's eager to please him and employs him as a spy/assassin for himself. JGS still wants NMJ dead but without the Lan songs or any previous ties NMJ proves to be a man that's annoyingly hard to kill (some 3zun or Nieyao would be nice) (🐨🐨)

ao3

Jin Guangyao didn’t kid himself that he’d be able to defeat Chifeng-zun in any fair combat.

He’d been trained, yes, and trained well, in every sword move and poison and dirty trick there was, everything an assassin needed to know – he’d killed dozens on his father’s orders by now, and plenty of them were very powerful cultivators, talented warriors, clever and cunning. But Chifeng-zun was a war hero, a general, the man who’d somehow defeated the near-god mad tyrant Wen Ruohan himself, even if no one knew exactly how, and he practically crackled with power.

If Jin Guangyao was going to kill him, he was going to have to be smart about it.

He started by playing nice. It wasn’t hard, given his role as Jin Guangshan’s not-quite acknowledged bastard son taken in out of the supposed kindness of his father’s heart; he was in charge of many things at Jinlin Tower, and that included managing the servants and greeting the guests. There were plenty of opportunities to smoothly interject himself into Chifeng-zun’s company – at first by carefully orchestrated ‘mistake’, and then through presuming on intimacy in what was a little bit of an overreach, albeit one equally carefully calculated.

He'd planned it all out in advance. He’d observed that Chifeng-zun was the sort of person to appreciate straightforwardness in others and to pity the weak. It wasn’t too hard to make sure some of his more virtuous and verifiable acts came to his ears, and then to show proof that they were in fact true. Sure enough, Chifeng-zun had looked at him with friendlier eyes in their subsequent meetings, and when Jin Guangyao had finally made his slightly daring move, he had been open to accepting it as if Jin Guangyao really were his peer.

It was…unsettlingly pleasant, actually, to be treated with the respect he’d always known he deserved.

Not just by Chifeng-zun, either – there was Zewu-jun alongside him, too, the number one most desirable young master in the cultivation world, and he’d immediately followed Chifeng-zun’s lead, sending Jin Guangyao a sparkling smile and treating him not only as a brother, but even, perhaps, as a friend.

If Jin Guangyao had been anyone else, he might’ve been tempted to drag his feet on his plan to murder Chifeng-zun simply in order to enjoy that moment of belonging and acceptance for just a little longer. But Jin Guangyao knew his place, after all these years; he knew, too, that the stiff-necked rigid morality of Chifeng-zun and Zewu-jun would never allow for them to treat him this well if they knew what he’d been up to at his father’s behest these past few years. That had been the trap his father had set for him, all that time ago: he’d traded him the Jin surname for ‘a few small tasks’, then informed him when the tasks were done that they had been so dire that the cultivation world would absolutely reject him at once if they ever heard about it. If Jin Guangyao wanted to remain in that world, he would need to continue to obey his father’s every word – or else…

Jin Guangyao knew better, anyway. There was no point in stalling. He wasn’t spending time with Chifeng-zun and Zewu-jun because he liked them. He was doing it to find the inexorable Chifeng-zun’s weakness.

That was all.

Chifeng-zun didn’t make it easy on him, either. He was disinterested in whoring, drank shit wine and only in moderation, ate to fuel his body rather than to enrich his soul, had no eye for art and was practically tone-deaf…

For a moment, Jin Guangyao thought that that might be the way to get at him – he was quite good at music himself, and he’d used musical cultivation as a tool of assassination before – but a moment later dismissed the thought: there was no way Chifeng-zun would ever tolerate accepting musical treatment from anyone other than Zewu-jun. And why would he? However good Jin Guangyao was, the First Jade of Lan was undoubtedly the superior musician…

It took Jin Guangyao quite a while to figure out what Chifeng-zun’s weakness actually was, and when he did he wanted to slap himself – it had been obvious as anything, staring him right in the face the entire time and smiling broadly as it did, too.

Chifeng-zun’s sole weakness was…Zewu-jun himself.

They were lovers, devoted ones, which Jin Guangyao supposed explained their disinterest in whores. More relevantly for his purposes, in his role as the Nie sect leader, Chifeng-zun was entitled to a bedroom that his sect protected to the fullest extent with arrays and talismans and the like, even in Jinlin Tower; it was completely impassable even for the finest assassin alive. But that room was surrounded by his own men, and that made it an exceedingly awkward place for secret lovers to meet. As a result, during the discussion conferences held with startling frequency following the fall of the Wen sect, Chifeng-zun would invariably find some reason to leave his highly guarded chambers, just as Zewu-jun would leave his own, and they would find themselves a vacant room somewhere in the vicinity, typically at some mortal inn in the area, whiling away the hours together there instead.

It was the perfect opportunity.

If Jin Guangyao felt a momentary regret that getting rid of Chifeng-zun meant, inevitably, getting rid of Zewu-jun as well, the two of them perfect scapegoats of a mutual murder…well, it was too late for regret.

Far too late.

He arranged it all for the next discussion conference at Jinlin Tower: Chifeng-zun’s rooms were further away than usual from Zewu-jun’s, to discourage them to visit each other; the rooms at Jinlin Tower were all completely taken; and in all the local vicinity there was only a single inn that still had a sign suggesting that there were rooms. That inn, naturally, was manned by Jin Guangyao’s people, who turned away anyone asking about it until an extremely distinctive and tall form came in, wrapped in a cloak that did nothing to really disguise his identity, and inquired about it.

Jin Guangyao readied himself. He had reported on his plan to his father in advance, as required, and his father had approved it, identifying only one thing to change – Jin Guangyao had intended to strike when Chifeng-zun was leaving, counting on his sated exhaustion to distract him enough to get the job done, but his father had recommended doing it while he was busy engaged in the act itself.

(“But Zewu-jun will be there, too,” Jin Guangyao had protested, initially thinking only about his given task, and his fathers had given him a look as if he were stupid.

“That’s the point,” he said, ruthlessly indifferent in a way that Jin Guangyao could not match no matter how jaded his assassinations had made him. “Kill them both, knock down both Lan and Nie, and there will be nothing between me and complete dominion over the cultivation world.”)

He waited, watching through a hole in the wall until they were busy under the covers, laughing and murmuring to each other – he firmly rejected any notion of jealousy, which would be absurd – and then, when he judged the moment was right, let himself in and attacked in a swift, silent movement.

Just before his blade struck, Chifeng-zun moved.

Jin Guangyao had enough presence of mind to note to himself that it was a beautiful move, smooth and calculated and perfectly timed – Chifeng-zun rolled over to the side and Zewu-jun was there to reach out and grab Jin Guangyao’s wrist, pulling him forward and taking advantage of the momentum of his own thrust to destabilize him. He was smaller than either of them, less muscular, and there was no hope of escape once they had him in their grasp.

Jin Guangyao resigned himself to his fate. If he was lucky, they would kill him directly. If they chose to arrest him instead, his father would disclaim everything he had done, disgrace him, strip him of his hard-won name, and then kill him anyway, just to make sure all those secrets he held were never used against the Jin sect. He would make it slow, too – far better, he thought, a little wistfully, that the stern but righteous Chifeng-zun and the merciful Zewu-jun do it.

They didn’t kill him.

Nor did they seem particularly intent on doing…anything else, either.

“See, I told you,” Zewu-jun said to Chifeng-zun in the tone of someone continuing a long-established and well-trodden conversation. “He’s cute!”

“He’s evil,” Chifeng-zun said dryly. “He just tried to kill us.”

“Still cute,” Zewu-jun insisted. “Anyway, what was he supposed to do? Tell that dreadful father of his no? At what cost?”

Jin Guangyao blinked at both of them. That did not sound as if they were planning on killing him or arresting him.

“And you have to admit, it was both well-planned and well set up,” Zewu-jun argued, and Jin Guangyao bemusedly realized that he was complimenting the assassination attempt. “It both maximizes his chances of success and avoids harming innocents as much as possible.”

“Mm, I suppose,” Chifeng-zun said, resting his head on the hand that was not holding Jin Guangyao down and making himself comfortable. “And I do always like competence in a person.”

“See? I told you: cute.”

Jin Guangyao cleared his throat.

When they both looked at him, trapped as he was between their bodies, he asked, “What are you planning on doing with me?”

“Well, that depends on you, doesn’t it?” Chifeng-zun said, and chuckled, moving the hand that had been holding him down over to rest on Jin Guangyao’s hip. He put almost no pressure on him, but it somehow felt as if his hip had concentrated all his nerve endings; it was as if his body were abruptly alight.

“You see, we’ve gotten rather fond of you these past months,” Zewu-jun said, and smiled at him. “If you were inclined to give up on the assassination attempts, we’d be interested in seeing if you’d be inclined to – well, to join us.”

He put his hand on Jin Guangyao’s side, just above Chifeng-zun.

Jin Guangyao swallowed.

He’d never wanted anything more.

“It’s not that simple,” he croaked. “I can’t just – the things I’ve done in the past…”

“At your father’s orders,” Chifeng-zun pointed out, voice steel. “He took you in when you had nothing, no backing and no protection, and abused his power over you to trap you and force you into his service – as Zewu-jun said, what were you supposed to do? But it can be different, now.”

“…can it?”

“We can protect you,” Zewu-jun said. “And that offer applies regardless of whether you accept our other offer.”

“The other offer being…”

“Joining us in our bed,” Chifeng-zun said, blunt as ever. “But we’d settle for our sects, instead.”

Jin Guangyao could use this, if he wanted to. He could turn this missed opportunity into an ‘in’, making himself the perfect spy, continue working for his father from one step removed. His father might even forgive him for having failed to kill them if he did that. He might even approve.

Of course, if he did, what would he really get? His father had already made Jin Guangyao’s position clear – he would never change, never give him the respect or the real acknowledgement he deserved. He would still think all those awful things about his mother, about him, no matter what he might pretend. Whereas respect was something both Chifeng-zun and Zewu-jun offered freely, even before they’d offered their gorgeous bodies to him as well…

Jin Guangyao smiled.

Who was he kidding?

He already knew what his decision was going to be.

“I think,” he said, “that we can work something out.”

[greenandhazy]

okay this is random but I find it really funny how neatly my favorite MDZS/CQL ships fit into a very distinct pattern and I got curious about, like, broader fandom opinions.

So. there are TWO instances in canon where you have a trio of people--Person A is widely considered to be very kind and just, and basically his main/only flaw is trusting the wrong people. Person B is his longterm friend, who is a little grumpier/angrier/slightly more judgmental, but also fundamentally good, and equal to him in power (and fairly close in height). Person C is a Villain with a traumatic childhood past marked by rejection and physical injuries, associated with the Wen and later the Jin. He is devoted to(/obsessed with) Person A more so than anyone else in his personal storyline, and he murders Person B via tricky means and conceals that fact from Person A. (And then, depending on the 'verse, C is also then murdered by B's fierce corpse.)

I filtered for the relationships on AO3 and got some fun results. In both cases, the most popular two-person ship from these trios are A/C, followed by A/B, and only then by B/C--although, interestingly, A/B/C is the least popular combination when it comes to 3zun, whereas SongXueXiao is in third place, being more popular than SongXue.

Statistics!! as of 5/26/2023

Lan Xichen/Nie Mingjue/Meng Yao:

there are 4,115 fics tagged for Lan Xichen/Meng Yao

if you exclude 3zun as an additional ship tag, that drops to 3,808

92.5% of XiYao fics lack the 3zun tag (which makes it the most "independent" of any of the ships mentioned in this post)

there are 1,969 fics tagged for Lan Xichen/Nie Mingjue

if you exclude 3zun, that drops to 1,718

87% of NieLan fics lack the 3zun tag

there are 1,581 fics tagged for Nie Mingjue/Meng Yao

if you exclude 3zun, that drops to 1,286

81% of NieYao fics lack the 3zun tag

in total, there are 1,002 fics tagged for 3zun, compared to 6,812 fics that feature some combination of the three but not all of them, a 6.8 to 1 ratio. (although I didn't filter for fics that featured all three 2-person ship tags without also featuring the 3-person ship tag because... idk, seemed like a pain.)

Xiao Xingchen/Song Lan/Xue Yang:

there are 2,817 fics tagged for Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang

if you exclude SXX, that drops to 2,367

84% of XueXiao fics lack the SXX tag

there are 2,328 fics tagged for Xiao Xingchen/Song Lan

if you exclude SXX, that drops to 1,897

81% of SongXiao fics lack the SXX tag

there are 744 fics tagged for Song Lan/Xue Yang

if you exclude SXX, that drops to 313

42% of SongXue fics lack the SXX tag (which makes it the least "independent" of any of these ships by a LOT. XiYao is only 8% ahead of the next most-independent ship, while SongXue is 39% behind the next most-dependent ships.)

in total, there are 1,015 fics tagged for SXX, compared to 4,577 fics that feature various combinations between them, a 4.5 to 1 ratio.

I think it's really interesting looking at the ways these break down similarly and differently! like, for 3zun, there is a VERY big gap between the most popular pairing and the second most popular one, with 2nd and 3rd place being very close, whereas for SongXueXiao, there is a muuuuch narrower margin between between the two most popular ships, and then the greatest gap is between the second-most-popular duo and the least popular duo.

I also think it's noteworthy that I've been in fandom for half my life and have never managed to have the strongest feelings about the most popular ships for my favorite characters lol, but there's no fun statistics for that.

[allthelittlecreepycrawlies]

SangYao Angst And Darkness, Part One

Nie Huaisang manages to cleanse and release Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao's souls, but never bothers to cleanse his own because he figures he still deserves that hurt.

Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao are reborn as brothers, both legitimate, to a wealthy and influential family outside the cultivator world and are doted on by their parents. Funny thing is, because Nie Mingjue hesitated about crossing the gate and leaving Nie Huaisang behind, he's now the younger sibling.

Nie Huaisang hasn't been so lucky. While he was born to a family with a popular restaurant, not only is he an only child, there is a lot of strife between his mother and uncle, who's mad the restaurant was left to her and not him. When his parents are killed in a suspicious accident, with him being too young to inherit, his uncle and aunt waste no time taking control of his parents' estate and selling him into servitude.

They meet when the brothers' father gets a promotion and decides to add more servants to their house and tells the older brother he can choose someone to help look after the younger since he keeps escaping the nannies.

He looks over the potentials, and when his eyes land on one in particular, he gets a hot angry feeling in his chest, like this other boy wronged him in the past somehow but he doesn't remember any such thing.

It doesn't matter in the end anyway, because his little brother spots the exact same stranger and gleefully pounces the extremely confused and surprised boy to hug the air out of him.

Well... that's that, the older brother and their father suppose, and the new servant is added to their household.

(And if the older brother privately thinks that the newcomer is very pretty despite the bad feeling that being around causes, well, so what about that?)

---

All weapons have a name everyone knows and a 'true' name only known to the owner. This is especially important for the Nies because manipulating the true name of a saber can have drastic consequences. 

Once upon a time, Papa Nie trusted Wen Ruohan with his. 

Once upon a time, Nie Huaisang trusted Jin Guangyao with the fact that the weapon with a true name wasn't his saber at all. 

And when Nie Huaisang gets caught before his revenge is complete, Jin Guangyao now has reason to use it against him, and they both know it.

(Imagine if, thinking he's about to die as horribly as his father and brother, Huaisang unloads some of that vitriol that's been brewing in him for years, bluntly accusing Jin Guangyao of having only seen him as a useful tool to either butter up or piss off da-ge.

It stings more than Jin Guangyao will ever admit, and it's what makes him decide on attic wifing.)

---

Jin Guangyao is interested in the yandere side Nie Huaisang hardly ever shows/may not even be aware he has, and starts actively trying to bring it out, only for it to massively backfire on him.

For the last couple of years, he's been carefully molding huaisang into the perfect little obsessive pet. 

But then something changes. 

Maybe he's being pushed to find a more socially appropriate relationship. 

Maybe it's a matter of family politics. 

Maybe he's just decided that what he's turned Huaisang into isn't actually what he wants anymore. 

Whatever the issue, he thinks he can just walk away. 

Leave the toy on the shelf. 

He is 

very 

very 

Wrong.

---

Some nicely gothic SangYao/NieYao where Nie Huaisang gets caught snooping around Koi Tower and Xue Yang jumps the gun and immediately kills him. 

Jin Guangyao is livid for multiple reasons, but before they can get into an argument about it, Huaisang's body starts to stir. 

He may not have been a master cultivator, but he sure died with a whole fucking lot of resentment in him. 

Enough that he reanimates without any necromancer help, just like his brother. 

The two immediately restrain him, and when it proves to be a bit harder than expected, Xue Yang immediately wants to experiment. If a puffball like Huaisang could actually become a reasonably strong fierce corpse, there is so much potential to be mined. 

Jin Guangyao is still pissed at him for killing Huaisang in the first place, but he also recognizes the opportunity they've been handed. 

It will be almost laughably easy to convince the Nie Sect that that Nie Huaisang has simply disappeared. They would welcome the chance to name a new sect leader.

And if Huaisang could be controlled, then he would have both nies nice and safe where he would never have to worry about either of them rejecting him ever again.

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

WIP Wednesday

Continuing on from last week's messy bitch(tm) divorced NieYao kind of maybe reconciling?

--//--

Jin Guangyao's hip aches and his knees are clicking more than usual today, a testament to both the hours he’s spent on his feet to prepare and host the current discussion conference as well as a herald of the storm brewing somewhere off towards Yunmeng that will roll in before dawn breaks. The air is already sticky and heavy with it, mocking him like it could ever replicate the humidity of a sweaty body over his and the oppressive heat of shared exertion warming the sheets past the point of comfort. He should stay in his too-hot, too-empty bed and stew in the unique misery of missing a man who despises him.

He stands and flexes his knees to get the loudest of the pops out of the way in the relative safety of his room. He dresses more haphazardly than usual in the outer robe he’d hung carefully over a screen at the foot of his bed, and when he slips into the hallway his soft-soled shoes are whisper-quiet against the floor. He passes no one on his way through the moon-shadow halls of Jinlintai, and by some act of divine mercy the likes of which he never receives, the clicking and popping of his broken body doesn’t betray his passage for anyone who sleeps lightly enough to hear such things. (Cultivators’ hearing is sharp, but Jin Guangyao has long mastered the art of moving quietly, even accounting for such dismal odds as his old injuries afford him).

This is a terrible idea. Jin Guangyao repeats it like a mantra, nearly meditative, as he slips through the densely planted, shadowed courtyard playing host to the Nie delegation – who don’t appreciate being woken by the sun like the Lans staying in the East courtyard do; as he finds the right suite of rooms and holds his breath for a moment, listening for any indication that Nie Mingjue isn’t alone; as he slides the door open silently, lacquered wood gliding so smoothly it’s quieter than a whisper.

This is a terrible idea.

Jin Guangyao steps further into the room until he can make out the watery outline of the bed in the faintest glow of moonlight from the window. Nie Mingjue is breathing slowly, evenly, and absolutely not asleep.

A predator, lying in wait.

“Commit,” Nie Mingjue rumbles when Jin Guangyao takes a step back, prepared to flee. He freezes, a rabbit caught in a snare of his own making. He should run. There’s the chance that Nie Mingjue still doesn’t realize it’s him, he could be just any intruder — Jinlintai has no shortage of people who want Nie Mingjue dead, any one of them could have snuck into the Nie Sect Leader’s chambers, which are far from secret.

(A part of him manages to dredge up some exasperation through his fear — of course Nie Mingjue would tell a potential assassin to commit if they’ve come so far as to infiltrate his quarters. His confidence in his ability to escape death would border on arrogance could he not back it up with so many years of military experience that mean he truly could overpower anyone attempting to sneak up on him if need be.)

Jin Guangyao pads across the room and doesn’t stop even when the covers rustle and Nie Mingjue sits up, nothing more than a hulking shadow in the dark, unbound hair wild around his head and his broad shoulders visible enough that Jin Guangyao can practically feel them under his palms as he traces them with a hungry gaze.

[zetdeg]

Nieyao going on a fancy restaurant date every year for their divorce anniversary, until one year Nie Mingjue has caught a cold right before their day so Jin Guangyao decides to go to his apartment and makes him a homecooked meal. then he takes his temperature, then he rolls him up in a blanket and before Jin Guangyao knows it he's tumbled face first back into the domestic bliss they shared in the past. Nie Mingjue asks him to stay and the next morning is the first time in years that they see each other on any other day than their anniversary

[meiilansnotebook]

CQL NieYao Patron request

Sect-Leader Nie knows the best way to get his overworked deputy to take some fucking rest, is to make him drink past his limit. 🤭

Don’t like, don’t interact. (°u°)b // Please don’t steal and/or repost.

● Patreon ● Comission Prices ● Redbubble ●

[mostlikelytofangirl]

20 Questions Writer Meme

Tagged by @unfortunatelycake, thanks girl!

How many works do you have on AO3? 28 written by me and one I'm credited as co-author but didn't really wrote.

What's your total AO3 word count? 928,907.

What fandoms do you write for? Currently only for MDZS, but I've also written for Boueibu.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? "All men are the same" MDZS nieyao. A comedy of errors where JGS tries to get NMJ and JGY married but it's all a misunderstanding with each one having his own version of what's going on. "Strong roots for a pine" MDZS nieyao. Accidental baby acquisition by MY keeping the baby he found during the war and changing his decisions and priorities. "Brother, don't preach" MDZS sangcheng, 3zun. Modern omegaverse with NHS getting accidentally pregnant during one of JC's visits and 3zun caring for him until JC returns from studing in another city. "To hold your hand and let it guide me" MDZS nieyao. Extra scene of 'All men are the same' where JGY is back in Qinghe and the dumbasses finally confess their feelings. "When the fire plays with you" MDZS ruoyao. After some tabloid headlines, CEO WRH convinces his temporary assistant MY to troll the entire city via a fake relationship. MY gets much more than he bargained for.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes, I do! Bc if the reader has gone out of their way to let me know that they appreciate my story, the least I can do is letting them know in turn that I appreciate their support ^^.

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Whoo, this took me down some memory lanes lol. That'd be "Say you love me like you mean it", a Boueibu akorima vampire AU where one doesn't remember their past lives as lovers.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? That's a very good question bc most my stuff has a happy, or at least a hopeful ending. I don't really think there's one that's particularly happier than the rest :P.

Do you get hate on fics? Not yet, which I'm very grateful for.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Technically, the answer is yes, but this far it has only been in convos with very close friends and just one tame-ish scene. I do have fics that will be E tho.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I don't really write crossover.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Luckily, no. That I know of, at least.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, actually! - "All men are the same" to Brazilian Portuguese (wattpad) - "Strong roots for a pine" to Spanish

Have you ever co-written a fic before? I'm credited as co-author in "Going digital", a Boueibu Digimon AU, but it was @magiccatprincess doing the actual writing, I just helped plot it ^^;.

What's your all-time favorite ship? I can't say I have an all-time fave bc my level of how much I love it changes every time I change hyperfixations. But in my current fandom I'd say nieyao, bc it was one of the first ships I fell for and it is still one I'm hella into, like a default.

What's a wip that you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? Ooh boy. I have lots of wips that I do intent on finishing one day, but tbh I fear that I'll get obsessed with another thing before I can get to them orz.

What are your writing strenghts? I guess that when I am inspired and very obsessed I can write a lot in a relatively short time, and I can adapt and improvise as I go. I've made plot critical changes in the middle of a story that was already getting posted without it showing too much lol.

What are your writing weaknesses? My aforementioned dependence on my level of obsession for a fic to get completed. If another fandom catches my eye and heart while I have unfinished fics, those are done for. My motivation for a previous fandom is pretty much non-existent when I'm neck deep into another thing, all my energy is now poured into new fandom with new fics and ideas.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Not a big fan of it and I don't really do it beyond names or expressions ('et tu', 'touché', etc.)

First fandom you wrote for? Boueibu.

Favorite fic you've ever written? This answer also changes depending on what fandom I'm in at the moment. But rn I'd say "Black hole sun", a MDZS alternative Guanyin temple scene with fierce corpse WRH bc I like the instrospection I do in JGY's character and choices (and also him getting to live :')))).

Tagging: @jgydidnothingwrong, @thebiscuiteternal, @wishthefish and whoever else wants to do this!

[evolutionsbedingt]

The 4141 3zun prequel is up!

Remember this series? I finally finished editing the 3zun prequel I wrote for this. Enjoy ;)

Four thousand days in the sun and we still don't burn

Chapters: 8/8 (31998 words) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Chose Not To Warn Relationships: XiYao, NieLan, NieYao, 3zun Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, they suffer so prettily, Chemical Weapons, xue yang is his own warning, Minor Character Death, Child Murder, Torture, Captivity, Mildly Dubious Consent, Past Mèng Yáo | Jīn Guāngyáo/Niè Míngjué, Getting Back Together, lovers to enemies to complicated relationship, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Parent(s), Canonical Character Death, Sunshot Campaign (Módào Zǔshī), Hopeful Ending, Pre-Poly, POV Alternating Summary: Meng Yao found an injured Lan Xichen on a train to Yunmeng and saw an opportunity worth seizing now that both his former lover and his father had rejected him. Little did he know that saving the First Jade of Lan would change the plans for his future so drastically in such a short time.