#so he knows shen wei can understand

[windowsillbells]

hi zhao yunlan is just as crazy and obsessed (and also scared angry) about shen wei as shen wei is about him

[accio-victuuri]

okay, you know what, i will talk about it now before i get buried in watching the show and editing. plus i also work to do lol. anyway, what cpfs are screaming about is this portion of the live stream where the host said : wish the both of them can stand side by side on top of the snowy mountain ; referring to the characters on the show, wei ruolai and shen tunan. it’s actually fine of you think about it, this saying is not all exclusive to bxgs and bjyx. maybe she was just saying it since it applied to the conversation and her hopes for the characters.

but what gets us 👀

1. the host’s reaction lol. how she went out of frame like she is embarrassed or maybe realized what she said. but i don’t think it was said with malicious intent. i hope she doesn’t get attacked.

2. WANG YIBO’S SMILE WTF. Dude. I’m out here poker face-ing my way when this was said but he was all obvious and 😏😏😏 like he knows and appreciates what was said. he was smile-y and sort of talkative and gracious in the live, but this smile was something else. it was so freakin sweet! helppp! he is not making it easier for us. you can say he appreciates it and that’s why he smiled but this is someone who definitely knows what that phrase means and it’s relation to him. cpfs took light signs of that phrase in CQL fanmeets and beyond — so it’s not impossible for him to understand. and remember that TTXS episode? he said that phrase too. lol.

for all the insinuation ( from haters ) that he doesn’t appreciate cpfs or even his time during cql, this smile says different. no words are needed. and that’s what yibo is as a person, he is more about actions.

3. IQIYI deleted this part in the playback of the live. LOL. they are saying it has to be removed because the line is from CQL, trademarked by Tencent. but i have a different take. they don’t wanna anger some people — a lot of them, watching the show. they don’t want a cotti coffee incident. it’s fine. i’m not gonna argue with toddlers who frequently have tantrums. i’m gonna be the adult here and let it be. 😌😌😌

i hope this doesn’t go on HS. i would rather this one below stay up, just to avoid drama.

we know the truth, we always did. thankful for this very sweet candy from our captain today and will continue to support WoF. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

并肩于雪山之巅 // stand side by side on top of the snowy mountain // BJYXSZD ❤️💛💚

[atholia]

I so understand why Lan Wangji fell in love with Wei Wuxian. WWX just really shines and he is so tender hearted. He's definitely that person you'll call a sunshine and sweetheart. Someone who can light a room. Someone who will always help. Someone who won't leave you no matter what. Someone who's loyal and who has your back. From the beginning, Lan Wangji noticed all of these things and he definitely has his eyes always glued on WWX. Our teenage Lan Wangji just didn't know how to show his affection, and of course 13 years later... when he saw his beloved, he's not gonna let go of him, ever again.

//art by Shen Lin

[mxtxfanatic]

One thing that I really appreciate about mxtx’s stories is that even though the common people are shown to have an understanding of hierarchy and a healthy skepticism—dare I say, disdain at times—for the elite class at the top of each world’s hierarchy, that doesn’t mean that their every judgment on the subject is right.

Tgcf is a perfect example of this in multiple arcs. The peoples of Xianle and Wuyong know that a person with money can bend the ear of a god, and the nobility of Xianle, specifically, even bar the poor from entering Xie Lian’s temples without first paying an entry fee. Lang Ying leads the Yong’an refugees to rebel because he sees the corruption girding Xianle society. However, these same peoples also believe in the hierarchy they despise for oppressing them. When the beloved princes of the respective kingdoms are unable to save their kingdoms from certain doom because they are unwilling to sacrifice the lives of others, those same citizens turn on them. Worse yet, Xie Lian and Jun Wu were the only gods who were about treating their worshippers equally regardless of status, while the gods who their former followers turned to for help were the very same ones that had watched them suffer, gleefully waiting for them to turn on their gods so that they could poach new worshippers. In the end, the people end up casting aside the gods who defied the heavens in an attempt to save them, in favor of worshipping the gods who wanted them to perish. We see this same level of misapplied understanding on smaller levels too: Mu Qing understanding classism but only taking issue with it when it negatively impacts him, personally; Lang Ying’s descendants devolving into the same kind of wasteful nobles that Lang Ying had deposed; the people in the temple who choose to stab Xie Lian to preserve their own life because “you’re meant to save us.”

Similar things happen in svsss and mdzs. In svsss, humans are reasonably wary of demons (who hunt and eat humans in this story) and look up to cultivators as their protectors, but broadly applying this allowed the corrupt Old Palace Master to weaponize that rightful wariness to harm his innocent targets: Su Xiyan, Tianlang-jun, Luo Binghe, and Shen Qingqiu. Had the common people witnessed a group of adult cultivators chasing a fearful toddler around be so convinced of the “righteousness” of the cultivators they admire? If so, would we, the audience, still look to the crowd as moral? At the same time in mdzs, the common people actually don’t look up to the righteous cultivation clans as inherently good, only a necessary expense—have you the funds—but even that is a weapon. Thirteen years after the first siege, a farming couple discusses how terrifying the power Wei Wuxian wielded was, grateful to the great cultivation clans for having killed him without any understanding that Wei Wuxian was the most upstanding cultivator of his generation.

In all of these examples, though the common people have an accurate understanding of systemic violence and the dangers present in their worlds, they are not always able to accurately apply that understanding on an individual or personal level, especially if their morals do not align with the idea that said violence is an inherent wrong. The common people in tgcf are not rioting against the concept of monarchies and nobility or the elitism of the gods, even as they know they suffer from it. The common people in svsss still shy away from demons, even though they’ve likely been harmed more times by a passing cultivator or rich person than they could even claim to have seen a demon. The common people in mdzs still turn to major cultivation clans for help and consider them to be overall moral people even with their publicly immoral behavior. None of these groups move to challenge the systemic violence despite knowing it exists on a personal level, which is what makes it very poignant when a character in these books does. Why did that person choose to speak up and stand out while most others didn’t? And what message is mxtx teaching us by showing us this character?

Knowledge, an understanding of systems of violence, and hierarchical placement does not make morality. Moral alignment paired with matching actions do. And without the latter, the former can be easily manipulated by bad-faith actors to reinforce the very systems that create the ills of society, regardless of what position one is born into on the social hierarchy.

[least-carpet]

Hiiii, if it's not too much, can you describe the biggest differences between the live action characters and the novel characters in MDZS? They are a lot, so I will love even the difference between few of them! I haven't seen the live action and I don't know if I will ever, but I am curious, considering all the meta. Anyway, thank you in general, even if you don't answer!

Hello anon! This has been in the inbox forever because there are soooo many ways to answer this! However, let me be transparent that I've watched maybe like 1/10 of CQL. Among other obstacles, I simply do not care that much about Lan Wangji and he's always there (even though Wang Yibo is giving it his all... it's not his fault I'm a hater...). Chewing through a book with Ms. Mxtx's commentary was just more enjoyable to me, and even then, to be honest, I still liked SVSSS better. (I just love Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu so much. That dude is wild.)

Still, the live action definitely affected how I understood certain characters (...primarily Nie Huaisang) and made me interested in relationships that I didn't pay any attention to in the novel. (I freely admit that the nieyao brainrot is 100% CQL's fault.) Also I found Wang Zhuocheng's Jiang Cheng very cute and loveable. It definitely contributed to my Jiang Cheng Brain Disease.

LISTEN. HE HAS BIG SAD EYES AND THE MEANEST SNEER AND HE MIGHT BURST INTO TEARS AT ANY TIME. HE IS A BABY. A baby who could kill you with his terrifying lightning whip! But a baby nonetheless, to me.

So if you want someone with a real and knowledgeable opinion on the live action, I'm probably not the right person for that! However, here's one difference that changed a bunch of stuff about the characters that I found compelling in the novel: the second flautist.

CQL adds Su She as a second flautist doing unorthodox cultivation in a couple of different places, including at Qiongqi Path, where he seizes control of Wen Ning and is therefore responsible for Jin Zixuan's death. Removing the responsibility for Jin Zixuan's death from Wei Wuxian creates a bunch of cascading character and relationship implications that I don't love.

Firstly, all of the people who cautioned Wei Wuxian against his unorthodox cultivation are now... wrong. If he never lost control, then actually his assessment that he could maintain control wasn't overconfidence, it was just true, and he was persecuted because the Jin needed a scapegoat and wanted the Yin Tiger Tally, not because his cultivation path actually involved significant risks and drawbacks. (To be fair, the Jins actively exploited those drawbacks, the public perception of his cultivation, and Wei Wuxian's failure to manage his reputation. But it matters whether the risks exist or are just made up.)

Secondly, removing his responsibility for Jin Zixuan's death transforms both Wei Wuxian's character and how we understand his relationships with Jiang Yanli, Jiang Cheng, and Jin Ling. Because, in the novel, he kills Jin Zixuan under duress but also after a lifetime of conflict with him. Like, he hates the dude, he doesn't think he's worthy of Jiang Yanli, and he's not willing to examine his hatred and resentment even though Jiang Yanli loves Jin Zixuan and wants to marry him, even after she marries him and has a child with him. (I would argue that a lot of the resentment is because of the eventual marriage; by marrying Jiang Yanli, Jin Zixuan becomes legally recognized family to the Jiang siblings, while Wei Wuxian's relationship with them has no social recognition; I think Wei Wuxian is deeply threatened by that but can't articulate it.) It's a huge failure! Like, dude, you loved someone and you killed that person's beloved spouse. That points to a certain degree of repressed jealousy, possessiveness, longing, arrogance, the list goes on... I am so compelled by that conflict, and the adaptation just erases it.

This also affects how we read Jin Ling's relationship with Wei Wuxian. In one scenario, a teenage Jin Ling is (eventually, minus one little stab) ending the cycle of violence by not seeking vengeance for his father's murder. In the other, it was actually someone associated with Jin Ling's paternal family that killed his father, and he's maybe just... coming to terms with that? One of these scenarios is so much richer and more interesting.

How it affects the relationship between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian is a little more subtle. It locates the responsibility for a lot of the harm done to the Jiang siblings with the Jin sect, not with Wei Wuxian, removing some of Wei Wuxian's culpability in the devolution of his relationship with Jiang Cheng. If Wei Wuxian isn't guilty of wronging the Jiang family (and instead is also a victim of the Jin sect), then all of Jiang Cheng's rage and betrayal was misdirected. They were both tricked. In some ways, maybe that's easier to patch up after canon? (I wonder if this is why many CQL yunmeng shuangjie reconciliation fics have Jiang Cheng apologize to Wei Wuxian, but not the other way around?) But it's so much less interesting to me!

Finally, it removes Wei Wuxian's tragic flaw! Dude is legitimately a genius but he's got hubris coming out of his ears and it fucks him up big time! This is classic stuff. Please stop flattening my boy!!

[silviakundera]

I'm gonna need kunning palace to give me a lot of the main otp in the last episodes, we have 8 left (this is why I don't f*ck with this 40 ep rule because now that we're getting the main relationship the show is over and everything that came before was also necessary). I'm gonna need to see how deep JXN's love for him becomes, I know people are obsessed with dedicated ML but I enjoy otps where it's more equal and I love seeing a female lead protect and support her otp the way he does her, even if it takes a while like in ming lan she had completely reasonable issues and took a while to warm up to him but when she did she was 1000% in and showed just how much she loved him, I personally don't appreciate unbalanced relationships where it's just one party sacrificing and being a lot more dedicated no matter the genders.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS

Hard to say, depends on how close they stay to the book. They've been quite faithful to the novel so far but at the point we are now is where I feel fairly confident that we're gonna diverge. Because in the novel the otp gets VERY dark before they get better. There's a reason why Xie Wei has been holding himself back & restraining his emotions. He's a whole mess of anxiety & PTSD and he has to work through his traumas. Both these characters have been a burningdog.gif meme and saying everything is just fiiiiiiiine but in the novel when they finally get alone on center stage together things get REAL because it's masks off. And underneath they are a whole mess.

imo the key to this pairing, and why we don't get a love confession from her until the very end, is what she thinks when she finally publically claims him (fittingly, she doesn't claim the lauded scholar but the unhinged figure that the public now finds monstrous):

Shen Zhiyi asked: "Ning Ning, do you know what kind of person he is?”

Jiang Xuening said, "I know."

This person forced her to kill in his previous life; even in this life, he still thought about taking her to die with him. He is definitely not a good person. How could she not know?

It can even be said that she knows better than anyone else. Because she has seen his truest and craziest side.

Shen Zhiyi asked again: "Do you like him?"

Jiang Xuening thought for a while and said, "I like him."

At this moment, Xie Wei's palm trembled slightly, but there seemed to be thousands of lights and shadows passing by in his mind, and finally there was nothing left, just staring at her blankly.

Yan Lin stood too far away, no one could see his blurred expression clearly.

Shen Zhiyi also didn't speak for a long time.

She didn't fully agree, she was afraid that her Ning Ning would be sad because of the wrong choice, but she couldn't stop her, and all her worries finally turned into one sentence: "Then you really know what you are doing now?"

Jiang Xuening smiled at her: "I understand."

And not only know what to do now, but also what to do in the future.

So calmly: "I want to marry him."

"..."

That night, he asked her once, but she didn't answer, so he never dared to ask again.

But now she says she wants to marry him. Xie Wei suddenly couldn't tell whether this was real or a dream: didn't she want to leave him and go find Zhang Zhe?

Jiang Xuening also saw that he didn't comprehend. "You are really, extremely smart, but you just don't like people."

Talking about love, this person is stupid to death.

I am too afraid of losing what I have, and I seem to think that what I have will eventually be lost, so I am paranoid, extreme, and I refuse to show weakness to others and say all those words.

Jiang Xuening felt that this person was too similar to her previous self.

There are some things that I don't understand, so I bash my head against it.

She blinked, with tears in her eyes, but took his hand, tiptoed to kiss his cool thin lips."

//

Part of the reason she feels so deeply for him is their deep down similarity, but the novel is Jiang Xuening's journey to love & accept herself, letting go of the pain & shame from the past. She doesn't reach this point until the end, where she recognizes and accepts her own darkness and thus his, and also believes it doesn't need to define their future. Everyone now thinks she is the saint and he's the sinner but she knows they are both.

The novel epilogue shows they are finding a peaceful life together, the urge to fight and claw at life and each other has finally passed. But though in the last 30% of the novel we get tons of couple-time, all the gestures of devotion are coming from him. She's not ready. I frankly have no idea how much the drama will change the last 30%, and it won't land the same cause I'm sure they have to tone down how scary the ML gets...but regardless I do think we won't get a confession until the last act.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

[miyu-hyperfixates]

Recently, I've been thinking about how the narrators of MXTX's books become progressively more unreliable with each new work. And how the more reliable they appear to be at first glance, the more unreliable they turned out to be.

1 - Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

Let's start with SVSSS.

Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu is your typical unreliable narrator in several ways.

First, regarding what happened in the original. At the beginning the only thing we knew about PIDW came from Shen Yuan's knowledge and own interpretations of the book. So of course we're taking everything at face value and accept all lot of Facts that OG!SQQ was an unredeemable scum villain (lecher, murderer, abuser, low IQ etc) for example. Though it becomes quite apparent half-way through the story (with the introduction of Airplane and when hints of OG!SQQ are shown) that Shen Yuan might not have been informed of the whole picture behind PIDW. There were a lot of background information and character depths that Shen Yuan weren't aware of (and he is discovering them at the same time as us the readers, but even if we're given hints and can infer about some things, the whole picture would only become apparent in the Extras ).

This is of course due to the fact that Shen Yuan used to be a Reader just like us and wasn't privy on the thoughts and disastrous plotting process of the Author.

Secondly, the narration in SVSSS is heavily influenced by SQQ own thoughts, views and interpretations of what he is living through. We know most of if not all his inner thoughts without much filtering. And it is very obvious right from the beginning that SQQ considers himself (due to his status as a transmigrator) an Omniscient Narrator (spoiler he is so not.)

Now the thing is, SQQ is very genre savy, okay? And say what you want, but he's actually quite observant... and it's not even that he can't identify the tropes when they happened to him (the amount of times he complained to the system from being involved in a wife plots) .... it's just that his internalized homophobia and his previous knowledge of PIDW is preventing him from reaching the right conclusions.

We, as readers, don't have this problem though. And this is why, SVSSS is a comedy, it is playing with the fact that we know SQQ is an unreliable narrator and it only works if we manage to notice what SQQ is missing. SVSSS thrives from SQQ being an unreliable narrator and all the misunderstandings that derive from it. I mean the whole Jinlan arc would read very differently if we were taking things at face value.

So yeah, SY | SQQ is an unreliable narrator and we were meant to notice that he is one right away.

2 - Mo Dao Zu Shi

Let's move on to MDZS and its narrator's, Wei Wuxian.

Now, WWX doesn't appear like an obvious unreliable narrator. His thoughts and feelings do, of course, colored the narrative when describing facts and people (and boy, that man has Opinions) but that is to be expected in any narrator.

Like SQQ before him, WWX is very observant but blind to his own impact on other people's lives. And it was implied thoroughly through the novel that he failed to notice the depth of people's feelings for him. And because of that, since you're seeing the world through WWX's eyes you have to try to read between the lines to understand some people actions. A lot of things are left to (more or less) interpretation, which is why some characters characterization wildly differs from one adaption to the other. (Jiang Cheng is probably the one who suffers the most from this problem, *squinting at the donghua adaptation of JC*).

So while WWX seems like a case of typical slightly unreliable narrator due to chronic obliviousness, you might not feel the need to label him as an unreliable narrator.

Until you realize that WWX tended to downplay a lot of things regarding his own sufferings and most importantly that he deliberately left things out of the narrative. Like... you know the whole thing with his golden core.

... Which is worse than SQQ, because at least SQQ didn't try to hide anything from the readers and you know.... conveniently forgetting a lot of things because he's got a bad memory.

3 - Tian Guan Ci Fu

Oh boy.... where to begin?

Xie Lian's narration, contrarily to both SQQ's and WWX's, appears to be sort of dry, a little matter-of-fact even? He is a lot less transparent with his own thoughts, so much that I've even been reluctant at the beginning to qualify TGCF as being from XL's POV. And more importantly he often doesn't bother to tell us things that he already knows (and he knows a lot of things). Which makes him the worst narrator ever.

I mean, you think the guy 's got a case of "a little bit oblivious" what's with him so half-assingly trying to "check San Lang's status/true identity" or him not realizing that the Middle court officers were obviously his former general in disguise.... But then speed forwarding to the next arc (or several next arcs in the case of Mu Qing and Feng Xin) and you realize that he actually knew all along and just didn't bother to tell us...

And it's super funny because he's like, "What? Do you think you guys were being sneaky or something?"

Another thing that makes him so unreliable is that you see him reading aloud the story of the demise of some general and then ten chapters later you realize that the general was him all along and he didn't even twitch while talking about it.

That of course prompted the running gag that if some random characters appears in the background/past of the current arc relevant character, then that random character had a 90% chance of being Xie Lian.

So yeah Xie Lian is most unreliable narrator of all three MC, because you don't have a clue that he's one until it's hitting you in the face.

4 - ??

So, seeing as how things have progressed so far, doesn't it mean that the 4th MC would be even worse than Xie Lian?

At this point, I wouldn't even be surprised if we spent two third of the 4th novel bemoaning on how the MC is so oblivious about the ML's (and his wholeass harem of side-characters) affection for him and then we got a scene like:

4th MC, after witnessing ML drinking vinegar, grinning affectionately: Pfft, we've been married for ten years and he's still being like this.

Readers : ....

Readers: !!! WHAT?! You're married?! Since how long?!

4th MC: Oh did you not know? But we've been holding hands the whole time?!

Readers: You didn't mention any of that!

4th MC, blinking: Oh we've been doing it so often that it just didn't register as something needed to mentioned?!

Readers: What about others things though, like kissing or papapa? Didn't you think it would be worth mentioning?

4th MC: Okay first, it's none of your business what me and my husband are doing behind the scene and secondly... bold of you to assume that I would have enough senses left to narrate anything while being intimate with my husband.

[vermillioncourt-if]

Well I'm interested in the RO's reaction for the kidnap ask, and I totally get doing the mom and bro first I also want more asks for the family.

Hello! ❤️

I'd be happy to write this for the ROs!

I, too, wish to get more family asks, as long as they aren't about Kutuo or Consort Xing skfjsjdjdk Those two are living rent free in your heads skdjsjdjd

ROs React to MC Getting Kidnapped and Reappearing Beaten

Si Huaiqiao - Huaiqiao will be so distraught with himself when you're first kidnapped. He's your personal guard! It's his job to make sure this exact thing doesn't happen! When you're found, he'll be relieved you're alive, but feel very guilty. He'll either spend no time with you as you're healing or he will hover around so much your Mother will have to dismiss him. He would join the group looking for revenge, but he's a little too sad for that.

Xu Chanyu - If Huaiqiao is distraught, Chanyu is furious. She doesn't understand how you could've been taken from under her watch! She's an assassin! Or was one, anyways. She resolves to training harder once you're found. Speaking of, she is one of the people Consort Huo sends out to go find you. When you're found, either by her or someone else, she'll be diligent in your care. She'll listen to the doctors closely, taking careful notes. She's not overly smothering, but she's definitely more serious about her job. As for revenge, well... of course she's coming. She probably was the one who found the kidnapper to begin with.

You Kounao - Kounao will be upset. He can't join in the search, but is happy when you're found alive. He spends all day with you as you're healing. He brings various things to help occupy your time, like books and weird things he found on the ground. You have to tell him to stick with bringing books or arts and crafts when he brings in a jar of worms he found. In his free time, he lends his help to the search for your kidnapper. It's not much, but he's a filthy little rich boy, and money will go a long way.

Shen Sandong - Sandong will also be very upset when she hears you've been kidnapped. She also can't participate in the search, but is by your side as soon as you're found. She, much like Chanyu, will take care of you as you're healing. She's not over as much as say Chanyu or Consort Huo is, but it's enough. She brings light and quiet things to do to help occupy your time. You find the silence to be refreshing and her presence is comforting. In her free time, she lends her help for the search for your kidnapper. She has a few choice words and actions for them when they're found.

Wei Duqiong - Duqiong will be furious, like Chanyu, but his is a silent rage. If you're not found in a matter of time he deems appropriate, he'll launch his own search for you. When you're found, he'll still be very angry. He won't spend much time with you as you heal, focused on finding your kidnapper and making them pay. He's not some stuffy noble, he's a commoner, and he's not afraid to use some of his more shady contacts.

Wu Nahou - Nahou will also be upset. She won't join the search to find you, but will be happy when you're found. She'll come spend time with you as much as she can. She'll bring poetry and her instruments to keep you entertained while you heal. She seeks your opinion often for her poetry. When she's not with you, she's lending her services to the search for your kidnapper. She may be a pretty courtesan, but she knows the city inside and out. She, like Duqiong, is also a commoner and playing dirty is just what comes natural.

[ultfreakme]

Hello.... Another fanfics ideas, cause you also love MDZS. Your top 5 (or top 3) fav SVSSS characters will be besties with who (in your opinions) if they were in other universe, with your top fav characters from MDZS? Hope my questions are not confusing.....

I understand the question anon! Oh this is interesting. My top faves in MDZS are Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian and Xiao Xingchen. Them interacting with Shen Jiu, Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe is going to be WILD. This will end in a horrible fight.

Jiang Cheng & Shen Jiu: I feel like SJ hates JC like immediately but JC isn't aware of it unless SJ actually says something. They think they're nothing like each other but everyone around them can tell they're alike.

Shen Yuan and Wei Wuxian: SY is going to be seated and listening to everything wwx has to say on demonic cultivation, he is intrigued, he wants to know how the fierce corpses work, they bring in Wen Ning for examination. Bonding over dissection and mosnters

Xiao Xingchen and Luo Binghe: LBH's going to so indifferent, but XXC is going to be the nicest person ever and wiggle his way into LBH's heart because he's giving Shizun vibes. Lbh will accidentally call him "mommy" at least once.

[mvsicinthedvrk]

i'm doing something a little different for my event prep-- because i'm on hiatus the rest of the month, i don't really have the ability to do much reaching out to plot (though if you pop into my dms unprompted to plot, feel free, as i'll definitely get back to you to chat when i'm able) and i need to make sure i keep my threads to a manageable number. but i still want to be able to be active during the event when i can! especially since other threads will be paused!

so below is my list of event threads; i'm limiting myself to 3ish per character for the time being with the understanding that i'm also willing to stretch it to more if there's pairings i really want to write for.

if you want me to write a starter, please request one below (limit 2 per member for now, please). i probably won't pre-plot with you much but i'll roll for the situation on my end as soon as u request them & add that info below so you have a general idea of what the conflict in the thread will be.

**and then this is the untraditional part of the starter call: there's obviously no obligation, but if you want to volunteer to write any starter(s) for a pairing, please also feel free to let me know below, so i can add that to my total thread count. i would love that. i likely won't be going through your starter calls to request things, not because i don't want to write with you all, but because i don't want to impose when there's a high chance i won't be around as much as usual

i'll also note that i don't think i'll be killing off any of my characters during this event, even temporarily, and if you want to kill off any of your muses, i'd honestly prefer you do it in a thread that's not with one of mine, but if you feel really strongly about it, we can definitely plot, i just need a heads up. thank u for understanding!

total thread count (list last updated saturday 10/14 at 9am):

bold is for my notes; means i need to write it still and strikethrough is that it's already written (written 19/20)

wei wuxian-- SLOTS FULL

one: writing wei wuxian and dream for alex (rolled: rat with a gun)

two: wei wuxian & yanli (aria writing)

three: wei wuxian & vic for swan (rolled: children with pumpkins for heads)

four: wei wuxian & cangse sanren (rolled: living corn attempting to eat u but it's still the size of regular corn)

five: wei wuxian & han solo (rolled: skeletons)

xie lian-- SLOTS FULL

one: writing hualian for mia (rolled: crossing stream)

two: xie lian & feng xin (kasey writing)

three: writing xie lian & mu qing for june (rolled: quicksand mud)

four: xie lian & shen qiao (june writing)

five: xie lian & sophie (rolled: a hoard of geese)

wen kexing-- 1 slot available

one: wenzhou (atlas writing)

two:

he xuan-- SLOTS FULL

one: writing beefleaf for sunny (rolled: poisonous gas)

two: writing he xuan & chunyu for kasey (rolled: giant spiders)

sha hualing-- SLOTS FULL

one: writing sha hualing & shang qinghua for sunny (rolled: murderous clown)

two: writing sha hualing & tina for risa (rolled: gritty)

liu qingge-- 1 slot available

one: liu qingge & anya (violet writing)

two:

loid forger-- SLOTS FULL

one: writing loid & anya for mia (rolled: werewolf)

two: writing loid & yor for kasey (rolled: giant table and feast)

dongfang qingcang-- 1 slot available

one: dongfang qingcang & xiao lanhua (kasey writing)

two:

chu wanning-- 1 slot available

one: ranwan (kasey writing)

two:

filippa kosta-- 1 slot available

one: writing filippa & cordelia for alex (rolled: high winds)

two:

qi yan-- 1 slot available

one: qi yan & laudna for cassie (rolled: giant spiderweb)

two:

kaz brekker-- SLOTS FULL

one: kaz & inej (sunny writing)

two: kaz & ninoma (alex writing)

three: writing kaz & wylan for aria (rolled: dead end/spores/drunk)

mo xi-- 1 slot available pls give him some love

one: june writing a surprise starter for mo xi and somebody

two:

pei ming-- 1 slot available

one: pei ming & bond (risa writing)

two: pei ming & heidi for swan (rolled: werewolf)

three:

lee rang-- SLOTS FULL

one: rang & yeon (atlas writing)

two: also lee rang & jang yeo hee (atlas writing)

two: lee rang & yuri for violet (rolled: whispering plant life)

xiao chiye-- SLOTS FULL

one: writing chiye & zechuan for june (rolled: werewolf, followed by truth zone)

two: chiye & qi zhuyin (june writing)

lu junyi -- 1 slot available

one: writing junyi & jasmine for moon (rolled: frozen tundra of corn)

two:

[shen-liqin]

I’M IN SCIENCE CLASS RN BUT I GOT AN IDEA FOR AN MXTX CROSSOVER

So I read in a meta post that it was mentioned in canon SVSSS that Airplane bro has written other stallion novels and that PIDW is just his most successful.

What if prior to writing all these stallion novels, he wrote MDZS and TGCF. It was smth he genuinely enjoyed doing but it didn’t really earn him cash bc it didn’t do well (IMPOSSIBLE I KNOW) so he kinda forgot about them. Both stories were finished though.

Bruh what if Wei Ying and Lan Zhan end up in SVSSS bc WY was messing with some talismans and ended up transporting them there. Meanwhile Xie Lian and Hua Cheng end up in SVSSS because of a mishap in Heaven.

I can already imagine Qinghua shaking when he sees these four and getting slightly emotional because they were created when he was still hopeful and somewhat naive regarding how he would get his income.

Shen Yuan is internally fanboying because as a dedicated fan critic, he also read MDZS and TGCF and greatly enjoyed it. Like yes my man is oblivious as fuck regarding romance as a whole, but he could care less about the main pairing being gay. He was only reading them for the lore.

WY and LZ are lowkey panicked but I can see WY somehow getting along well with SY because they end up bonding over being constantly wrecked by their husbands.

XL and HC are confused and kinda wary but they warm up to Bingqiu and Wangxian after a bit. Binghe prolly tries to give XL some cooking advice with HC lowkey breathing down his neck because if Binghe ends up unintentionally insulting XL then they’re definitely gunna have a problem.

Ngl I can kinda see Hua Cheng and Lan Zhan kinda doing their own thing in comfortable silence because if their mutual understanding of each other in terms of devotion. Binghe joins them from time to time when all three of their husbands hang out by themselves. Like I can imagine Lan Zhan composing a new song, Hua Cheng making a mini statue, and Binghe making everyone a meal.

Meanwhile Shen Yuan and Wei Ying end up convincing Xie Lian to do all sorts of ridiculous shit with them. If you guys are questioning why Shen Yuan would agree to any of this my answer is simple, this man may be a lofty immortal but he’s still a shut-in from the 21st century. He has a lot of semi-pent up crackhead energy.

Xie Lian is confused but he’s enjoying himself so he doesn’t question it and is just enjoying having some new friends. Wei Ying just wants to encourage the chaos.

WAIT FUCK WHAT IF WEI YING MEETS QINGHUA-

Lan Zhan and Mobei-jun are going to be drinking vinegar because if their husbands end up having a conversation then everyone is screwed.

Wei Ying is a genius, but Qinghua deadass created the mechanics of MDZS, TGCF, and PIDW. My man has a shit ton of knowledge and he’s gunna use it. Pretty sure Qinghua and Wei Ying end up doing most of the with figuring out how to send everyone back to their of worlds.

[lunarriviera]

🌹

It’s like any other night before battle, Shen Wei tells himself. He’s done it a hundred times, lying sleepless in the dark, trying to plot out or improve some strategy in his head, aching, alone, wishing for a companion, someone to share his anxieties through the long night, wishing he could hold someone or be held, wanting something the Black Cloaked Envoy cannot ever have—

And then they’re alone, just the two of them, and Yunlan leans over the table, is about to lower the lamp flame when Shen Wei crosses to him and stops him with a touch of one hand to his wrist, not feeling daring but absolutely terrified. “Wait.”

Zhao Yunlan pauses, looks at him so closely that Shen Wei can feel the gaze like a physical touch on his skin. He’s too shrewd by half, Shen Wei realizes, dismayed; Shen Wei tries to hide, always tries so hard, but is surely an open book to Zhao Yunlan, because Yunlan knows him in the future—knows him very well, apparently. Maybe too well. “What is it, Xiao Wei?” and Shen Wei could take anything but that, it makes him melt. And Zhao Yunlan knows that; he deploys it, it’s colossally unfair.

Shen Wei shuts his eyes, just for a second, stunned, to regain himself. When he swallows, his throat clicks, probably loudly enough for Zhao Yunlan to hear, because when Shen Wei opens his eyes again, Zhao Yunlan is standing very close, close enough for Shen Wei to feel the heat of his body against his own skin. If Shen Wei wanted to meet Zhao Yunlan’s gaze, even if he dared, he’d have to tip his face up. “What did you want to say?” asks Yunlan, throaty and soft.

“I wondered,” Shen Wei starts, but has no way to finish that sentence. He curls his fingers into his palms; his voice is shaking. “If we. In the future.” He can’t believe he said it.

“In the future,” echoes Zhao Yunlan, and then he laughs quietly, as if he finally understands something. “No. We never—it never seemed like we had time. But we wanted to. Both of us.”

“How did you know,” says Shen Wei, breathless but marveling. “How could you tell?” But Yunlan always knows such things.

He looks at Shen Wei, dark eyes burning up anything that would dare to come between them. “I could tell from the way you looked at me. The way you’re looking at me now.”

send me 🌹 and i’ll give you a sentence from one of my wips ♥

[eyes-of-mischief]

weekly fic recs | 45

prompt: sleep

fandoms: bnha, mdzs, svsss, tgcf

bnha

Cracked, Fried, and Scrambled by PoppinBoppin

(mature) (graphic depictions of violence, major character death)

On a spring day in April, Kacchan tells Deku to take a swan dive off a roof and hope for a quirk in his next life. 

On a spring day in April, Deku follows a simple sequence of actions. 

Deku leaves school, gritting his teeth with tears in his eyes.

Deku claws Katsuki out of fire and grit and grease and slime. 

Deku walks away, Katsuki screaming at his back. I don’t need your help! You’re Useless! This means Nothing to me!

And Then...

On a spring morning in April, Katsuki arrives at Aldera Junior High early to perform classroom duties, and stops in front of the bloodied corpse of Midoriya Izuku. - Unable to deal with the unbearable guilt of causing his childhood friend's death, Bakugou Katsuki finds a way to see him again.

Meanwhile, Aizawa Shouta deals with an unbearably high mortality rate with his students, even if he takes the right steps to try to stop them.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead by iizukuus

“IcyHot?” “I need—need help, I can’t, can’t—” Shouto breathes, tears staining his cheeks as he stumbles over to Bakugou, his muscles are weak, heavy—they aren’t working. His legs give out and— ”Easy, easy,” Bakugou stumbles back and keeps Shouto up with his steady arms, holds on to his waist tight. “I don't know what to do,” he hiccups, pressing his face into Bakugou’s shoulder as he sobs and tugs at his shirt, “what’s happening to me?”

Shouto gets hit with a quirk that prevents him from sleeping and reality as he knows it, crumbles before him.

mdzs

let the sun go down on your anger; let it burn you to sleep by enbysaurus_rex

Wei Wuxian's been treating his narcolepsy with his golden core

The core removal changes things

You, Asleep and Dreaming by etymologyplayground

(mature)

Wei Wuxian chuckles and starts pushing Lan Wangji's outer robes off his shoulders. "Poor Lan Zhan, subject to such earthly miseries. You must be exhausted, come to bed, come to bed."

"Mm," Lan Wangji says. He raises his arms so that Wei Wuxian can keep undressing him. His clothes will end up on the floor, but no matter. Wei Wuxian's deft hands at his belts are worth wrinkled robes.

"... Goodness, Hanguang-Jun, you wear too many damned layers," Wei Wuxian tells him after a while. "Would it kill you to stop after a reasonable five?"

--

Wei Wuxian moves into the Jingshi. They sleep together.

like a moonbeam, here you are by typefortydeductions

'At first, Lan Wangji's dreams are the same as they have ever been. Memories of Wei Ying, his unconscious mind re-rehearsing the same events over and over again. But, slowly they begin to change, filtered through with the same silver-blue light that shines throughout the Cold Ponds. In these dreams, Wei Ying is not raving with madness, not close to death. He curls, small and broken, on a rock not unlike Lan Wangji’s own.'

In seclusion, Lan Wangji dreams of Wei Wuxian, and finds his way back to him.

svsss

love's worth running to by ghostybreads

“Shizun,” he purred, darkly calm despite the anger oozing out of his mock-respectful smile. Luo Binghe's grip on Xiu Ya's blade tightened, and he realised with belated horror that his blood was running down the sword and dripping by Shen Qingqiu's feet. His sword had to be held at an upwards angle now, to reach the place where he pierced him back then.

Shen Qingqiu felt sick. There was something wrong in this dream.

“I ask you again. Do you regret it, Shizun?”

//

Shen Qingqiu can't answer whether he regrets betraying him. Luo Binghe wants his Shizun to understand how he suffered, and drags Shen Qingqiu into his dreamscape of the Endless Abyss that night.

The only problem: Shen Qingqiu isn't waking up.

What Dreams May Come by The Feels Whale (miscellea)

(explicit)

In the time between sacrificing himself to stop his estranged disciple’s qi deviation and waking up in his back-up body, Shen Yuan -formerly Shen Qingqiu- experiences a long series of dreams that make him confront quite a few things about himself that he’d been stubbornly ignoring.

Good thing they’re just dreams, right? Otherwise he’d never be able to look Luo Binghe in the eye ever again.

-

Binghe froze under his hands as Shen Yuan brought him into the most gentle hug he could manage. “Still crying?” He asked, only just keeping the unsteadiness out of his voice. He was naked and this was a sex dream and Binghe was crying all over his dick.

He didn’t need his kinks spelled out for him quite this explicitly, thanks.

-

Or: two horny idiots finally get out of their own way.

tgcf

To see the next part of the dream by goodbye_blue

“I’m sorry Gege, I’m just a bit surprised. Let me make sure I am understanding this correctly,” he said, taking half a step forward. “You are real and also asleep. I am also real, and not a figment of your imagination. We are both real, and asleep, and dreaming the same dream right now.” Xie Lian shrugged. “It looks like it.”

When Xie Lian gets hit by a curse, he winds up sharing his dreams with a certain ghost king who would very much like to know where he is in real life.

Galatea by zarasu

(mature) (graphic depictions of violence)

Caught in the coffin, Xie Lian's desperation reaches a level that splinters his cursed shackles a little. From then on, he finds himself in one of the statues in the Cave of Ten Thousand Gods every time he dreams. His only hope of escaping the coffin completely is asking the mysterious sculptor for help who regularly appears in the cave to work on one of the statues.

[mejomonster]

The Pornographer is begging for a Guardian au. This would just work SO good as a Guardian au. Zhao Yunlan as a student at Dragon City university. Shen Wei as a nearby novelist he hits with a bike. Shen Wei faking his arm broken so he can spend more time with Kunlun despite himself, Zhao Yunlan playing into it because he knows his dad the chief of SID is investigating Shen Wei (and he both wants to get in on the action and then later save this handsome man). Shen Wei eventually pushing him away, saying he shouldn't have done this, he doesn't want to let Zhao Yunlan down. That Zhao yunlan is so young, he shouldn't want to be around Shen Wei (an immortal who genuinely is physically not good for his health). Zhao Yunlan not understanding. Desperate for Shen Wei to want him. To take him. To stop pushing him away.

These scenes just. These lines just. A Guardian au would work SO WELL.

[hideyseek]

okay well i was doing something else (liveblogging me watching guardian episode 23) and i started writing a post that "quoted" the show, then second-guessed my translation, and then spent literally two hours thinking about how to translate the preceding sentence. oops. this post is so long but also was SO fun.

ok so the full ... thing that zhao yunlan says is: 他这个人呀，个性太深沉. 喜欢哑巴吃黄连. 所以我只能等着了, 等到他苦到心头, 苦到他自己说出来为止. i'm only actually translating the first sentence, bc it took me like two hours and i need to go to bed. that first sentence is: 他这个人呀，个性太深沉. the 他 (he) in this sentence refers to shen wei.

uh. direct translation (literal translation? idk what this is called) would be something like: he, this person, personality too [adjective]. just to give some sense of structure, bc i have translation opinions about this later.

first off, this adjective. 沈沉 (shen1 chen2) means both "deep, profound" and "undemonstrative, reserved", according to pleco. i'm willing to bet that the line is meant to describe shen wei with both meanings. my best translation includes the word "fathom". "hard to fathom" or "fathomless" — i think that leans toward both the "depth" part and the lack of knowing/understanding, though describing someone as "fathomless" conveys the distance of "reserved" from the other direction: a distance to breach rather than a distance created. i'll accept this only because zhao yunlan, rather than shen wei, is the one speaking (well also becaue there is not another english word i know that can do this lol.) also, the bit i'm most thrilled about with this word choice: both characters (沈沉) in the original phrase have the water radical, and 沉 used as a verb means "to sink" (as an adjective it means "heavy"). historically (but modern-day in usa english only apparently), a fathom is a unit (equal to 6 feet) used to measure water depth, which pleasantly mirrors the deep water that the original phrase invokes to me.

and then the matter of preserving the cadence of the original line. lol. lmao, even. in my mind, part of what i'm valuing as a translator is giving an actor the same amount of time to work with when speaking. does this matter to other people? probably not. if this was written down i would probably value something else. but i'm the one writing the world's longest post about this, and bai yu said it, so.

initially i thought something like: "he's— he's too fathomless a person." the added dash because i couldn't think of another way to give the reader or actor the space of "这个人呀", which directly translated is like "this person" and here in the line i think is just a way to lend emphasis to "他" (he). but the dash could also force an actor into playing hesitation on the line when it's not originally present -- the way bai yu says this, it comes across meandering/pondering. (screams)

ok fast forwarding to after i chewed on this stick for way too long, bc it got late and i wasn't that structured about thinking about it anymore. it became a sort of "brute force it and then identify what i dislike about this translation and try to fix it." i'm going with: "he's such a fathomless person, that guy." (admittedly, this is without translating the other sentences of this bit that zhao yunlan is saying. in full context / going into the next sentence i might tweak it later.) analysis (justification? lol) follows:

the addition of "that guy" emphasizes the "he" of the first phrase and lengthens the whole line without making it more formal (more difficult than i expected!) in a way that mirrors the "这个人呀" of the original line. this is the "giving an actor enough words to work with" thing. just "he's such a fathomless person" is much more direct than the original line. but with this translation, there is an added distance between the speaker and the object of the sentence. in the original line, zhao yunlan says "这个人", meaning literally "this person", but in the sentence i feel like it's being used as more like, "this example" ("he", shen wei). either way, to me there's a nearbyness/presence conveyed. but it didn't feel right to maintain the use of "this" when shen wei isn't in the room (actually i have no idea if he is even in the building), and also in english when speaking generally about a person, i feel like it's more ... fluid(??) to say "that guy" than "this guy" (though truthfully writing this post has made me doubt my grasp of english about seven times so i'm really not so sure anymore). anyway, the point is, i compromised with "that guy".

we also lose the directness of zhao yunlan commenting specifically on shen wei's character/personality, since the original line is phrased as, "his personality/character is too [adjective]", but i'm satisfied with how much of that idea is retained with this translation. i also don't want to prioritize including the word "personality" over mirroring the cadence of the translation (when this would also cost us the secondary meaning of "character"). and, when including an extra word to capture this meaning (ie, the word "personality"), i couldn't figure out a way to juggle both the "too/overmuch" meaning of 太 and the natural-sounding two-part structure to the original line. "his personality is too/so fathomless" / "he's too fathomless a person" both don't sound quite right to me, but "he's too hard to fathom" emphasizes this idea of difficulty/prior attempt that both isn't present in the original line and doesn't really feel in character for zhao yunlan at this point. by now shen wei has already described zhao yunlan as the one person who has attempted to/partially succeeded in understanding him.

i wanted a third pros/cons paragraph bc two felt like too few but i think that was already my entire rant about "fathom" above. the third pro is: this translation achieved ... basic translation, lol. it conveys roughly the same meaning as the spoken lines and as far as i can tell (not far) is roughly the same level of casual/formal-ness. it doesn't include any additional metaphors or similes not present in the original.

ok that's all lol. goodnight ✌️

[lryghe]

MXTX thoughts; 3rd person limited

I’ve had some decently relevant thoughts regarding MXTX and her use of 3rd person limited, and I wanted to touch on them quickly because it’s rather interesting to think about. I think I’ll be doing a few separate posts surrounding an analysis of MXTX and her use of style and the common conventions she employs, mostly because I’m a loser who likes analysis and this is my archive, I can do what I want. Preface, yes, this post will contain spoilers for all 3 of MXTX’s works, but probably only minor ones. 

I’ve mentioned this before in my ‘SVSSS thoughts; perspective’ post minorly, but for those who don’t know what exactly third person limited is, I’ll give a brief explanation. Third person perspective is what majority of works are written in. It uses no personal pronouns (e.g., no I or you, ‘she’ turned her head) and focuses on the outwards world, giving insight into not only the main subjects thoughts, but also the characters around them. Third person can also give insight into things happening in different places at different times much easier than first or second person, simply because it's so omniscient (3rd person is often categorised into 3rd person omniscient and limited). Third person limited however is focused on this same type of pronoun ([character name] turned their head) but only unlocks the thoughts and emotions of one character.  

That’s what MXTX is doing with literally every single one of her works, most notably in SVSSS. Shen Qingqiu is a particularly dense narrator, and only gains insight into other people's inner worlds periodically, while Wei Wuxian also suffers the same fate in MDZS, both able to acknowledge other people's perspectives but only through their own eyes, which tilts the perspective of characters. TGCF also does this, but it’s far more subtle than MXTX’s previous works because of a few different things, such as Xie Lian’s overall character being intuitive (and empathetic) towards other people to an incredible degree, and the storyline focusing a lot more on past events than the others did.  

MXTX’s use of 3rd person limited is really subtle in places though, and it's interwoven into the story in such a genius way because although the narrators are unreliable because of this perspective, a whole and complete storyline is achieved no matter what. It’s a favourite of mine to discuss because it alters a lot of the general themes and basic characterisation. SVSSS would definitely be a tragedy from anyone else's eyes (for example, Luo Binghe or Yue Qingyuan), and MDZS is just in general a giant mess of characterisation in the first place but would be so much easier to understand without Wei Wuxian’s self-sacrificial eyes not acknowledging that other people have feelings when he continues to do things for them at his own risk.  

I’ve noticed I don’t mention TGCF that often and I wanted to rectify that in this post because TGCF is, in general, a vastly different type of story than MDZS and SVSSS. While MDZS also has a non-linear storyline, TGCF takes that to an entirely new (very confusing) level, switching through books to different stages of history. And so, the 3rd person limited isn’t that obvious as her other works but it’s definitely still there! The best example of this is whenever Xie Lian meets a new character, and the very first thing he does is categorise whether they are Handsome or Not, which is indisputably my favourite thing about him. 

In conclusion, I like the way MXTX writes things. I feel sick just thinking about how well she writes. It drives me crazy. Next post will be about MXTX and themes/conventions! 

Words: 612 

Reading time: 3 mins