#wwx was distraught even BEFORE jyl death. and then she dies????

[nyxyooni]

to the people who still think wwx is entirely at fault for everything that happened. like the raid on lotus pier, the death of jzx and jyl and what happened to the wens—did u read the book? like actually read the words and intake them properly. did u watch anything??? like really, really watch it????

[angstymdzsthoughts]

1/?) Yiling Patriarch!LWJ where the WWX is captured by the Wens when JC is too slow to distract them and sacrifice himself. WWX is tortured and has his golden core melted. LWJ does not stop looking for him and manages to save him, with the help of WN and WQ. LWJ begs WQ to give WWX his golden core and she agrees (she just tells WWX his core hadn’t been fully destroyed when he wakes up)

(2/?) the Wens manage to capture the now core-less LWJ and throw him into the Burial Mounds. LWJ manages to save himself and get himself out of there when he remembers WWX’s theories on harnessing resentful energy. He leaves the BM after 3 months and then things basically go similar to how they did for WWX in canon - this time WQ approaches LWJ, who agrees to help her based on what she did for him and WWX

(3/?) LWJ takes the Wens to the burial mounds and revives WN’s consciousness, with WWX visiting frequently because he can see that LWJ is doing the right thing, and while he is worried about demonic cultivation potentially harming LWJ, he knows LWJ is doing what’s right. Then JL’s one month celebration happens and JZX invites LWJ because JGY basically talked him into it - JGY is supposedly really worried about LXC who has been distraught over his brother

4/?) JZX being a good brother, agrees to help mediate the situation when JGY asks for help. LWJ is initially not going to attend, but WWX suggests that they could attend together, and he would escort him there. LWJ basically gets hearts in his eyes at this point and agrees, because when is he ever going to say no to his Wei Ying. However Jin ZiXun (convinced that LWJ had cursed him) ambushes them on the way there

5/?) WN is with them as well, but WWX manages to convince LWJ not to attack, and instead tries to defuse the situation and tells Jin ZiXun that he has this all wrong. Then JZX shows up and LWJ accuses him of tricking him, but JZX denies this and tries to get them both to come back with him. LWJ seems to be calming down but then someone fires an arrow in the confusion, and WWX gets hit in the shoulder.

6/?) LWJ freaks out and loses control, and WN kills JZX. WN takes both LWJ and WWX back to the BM. WQ heals WWX’s shoulder and then the calls for LWJ’s head start coming from the Jin sect. WWX says he needs to go back and be with his sister, and he’ll try his best to talk them out of it. He and WWX share a teary goodbye, and WWX says he knows LWJ had never done that intentionally. However both WQ and WN know this won’t be enough

(7/?) and then themselves in. LWJ goes after them to the Nightless City where he loses control after finding out that WQ and WN had been killed. When his corpses start attacking people, WWX frantically tries to stop him, but is cut down by his corpses. LWJ stops immediately and goes to him, and promises WWX that he will stop. However, someone then tries to cut him down and wwx, in a similar move to JYL, pushes him out of the way and takes the blow

(8/?) WWX dies in LWJ’s arms, and LWJ completely loses control. He uses the Stygian Tiger Amulet (yes, he created it at some point during all of this) and causes a massacre of thousands of people. Unlike with WWX, with no one to help him get out of there, he just keeps killing more and more people until someone (who will later be revealed as JC, furious and grief stricken over his brother’s death) kills him

9/?) LWJ then somehow wakes up years in the past, right after the Wens attacked Lotus Pier. Remembering what happened, LWJ hurries over to the place where WWX had first been captured by the Wens and kills them. He makes himself scarce, too scared to approach WWX since he blames himself for killing his love. He vows that he won’t use resentful energy ever again. However after he leaves (intending to do his best to help the war with his normal cultivation) JC is captured by the remaining Wens

(10/?) WWX goes to save him, gives him his core, ect. And next thing LWJ knows, WWX has been thrown into the BM. Of course he doesn’t know for sure where he is for those three months until they face each other again when WWX has become a demonic cultivator, and LWJ realises in horror what has happened. LWJ continuously tries to convince WWX to stop, knowing from experience how dangerous demonic cultivation really was

11/?) however WWX keeps going, canon events still happen (LWJ hadn’t known that WWX would be attending their one month celebration so he couldn’t stop him). All he can do after the massacre at nightless city is to take him away, but even that doesn’t seem to help much. eventually WWX breaks the seal at the BM and his corpses devour him, and LWJ can’t do anything to stop it. It seems that in his efforts to save WWX, he just made things worse than before

(12/?) Lwj once again reminds himself that he will never again touch demonic cultivation, even though the voices in his head scream at him to cut down everyone who harmed WWX. He goes to the BM, saves A-Yuan and spends the next 13 years mourning his love

[briapia95]

I read all of the arranged marriage AU and it's Chef's kiss. Because I'm a terrible person, I imagined the rest as Ultimate Bad End AU™ wherein LWJ loses his core and becomes Yiling Patriarch, dies in the Burial Mounds after LXC dies at Qiongqi way and WWX stays miserable and in cloud recesses because he thinks he ruins everything he touches and he doesn't wanna fuck things up for JC and Yanli

Omg that’s brutal and I love it xD. I imagine that the original AU while angsty, it won’t be as brutal (I think), but just for the lols let’s imagine that. I have this named in my docs as “the super bad ending lol noooope” just so you know;

[Here for the original AU]

LWJ is a powerful cultivator but there’s so much he can do anything against Wen Zhuliu (WZL?) when they’re at one of Dusk Creek Mountain’s many caves. He does not see it coming, one moment they’re trying to get away from the Xuanwu of Slaughter, Wen disciples trying and failing to climb back the way they’ve all come from and the next moment WWX is pushing himself in between Luo Qingyang and that wicked brand Wang Lingjiao (WLJ?) had used to threaten them since this excuse of a night-hunt began.

WLJ burns WWX, as in canon, but this time seeing this LWJ  furiously attacks the other Wen cultivators, WLJ realizing shit, I shouldn’t have done that, starts panicking and screaming; causing more mayhem in the midst of the current chaos that’s happening. This gives an opening for the other disciples from the different sects to fight against the Wen cultivators, using their corpses to distract the Xuanwu for a while many of them are able to climb out of the cave.

Meanwhile, WC tries to shut WLJ up, her clinging to him and making it impossible to escape, but then LWJ is coming after him too, that’s when WZL comes in between them. Too fast, too driven to protect his master for LWJ wrath. WWX somewhat near realizes, screaming “Lan Zhan!” in warning and desperation, but it’s too late now, he’s too far away, the second master of Gusu Lan has now gotten his golden core shattered.

The pain is not as terrible as the sudden cold that sinks into his bones. Making him almost lose his consciousness right there and then. He does not notice WC & company fled, WWX enraged and confused, manages to come to LWJ’s aid but because of plot reasons -don’t ask me- they still find themselves trapped inside the cave with a wild Xuanwu that while appeased, is still a threat to them. (the same happens here, JC & co. go get help now with the added bonus of not being pursued by the Wen)

WWX’s guilt starts to simmer, “if you had not come to my aid you’d still have your core intact, Lan Zhan, why would you do something like that?”, he whispers, tears streaming down his cheeks and onto LWJ’s cheeks, LWJ face pressed against WWX chest as he softly streaks his hair while his other arm keeps their bodies together.

“Is it not apparent?” LWJ asks, words strained from the effort that takes not to lose consciousness.

WWX trembles, throat thigh, tears still not stopping, “You are a stupid, stupid, man, Lan Zhan. Has nobody ever told you that? A stupid, noble, too good man” he finishes as the presses their lips together for the first time. LWJ kisses back, he has dreamed about this moment for months now and it’s everything he ever hoped for, his only regret that it has happened in the worst circumstances imaginable.

Flash forward to the rescue, they can’t really kill the Xuanwu of Slaughter but its hunger is quelled enough for it to not come when they get them out. JC is there and so is LXC and enough disciples to form a small army (Both Yunmeng Jiang and Gusu Lan sect forces intact and ready for action since the attract on Lanling Jin)

The state of LWJ’s core is kept secret since only WWX and WC & co know, everyone else too distracted fleeing the cave to notice.

Plot happens and the war starts, WWX being the former Yunmeng Jiang head disciple and married to the second young master of Gusu Lan goes to war too. (Also, hello there guilt, we love some self-sacrificing WWX that has not been able to cope much with the knowledge that his husband was defending him, therefore, in his mind, him being the reason he lost his core, even if LWJ has told him repeatedly that no it’s not his fault).

So as the war drags on, his husband not coming back and in a desperate attempt to help him and some convenient plot sprinkled in the way, LWJ finds himself at burial mounds, flash forward to three months later and ta-da! Yiling Patriarch! LWJ.

Let’s say the first supervisory office he goes to is the Yiling one, he meets WQ, and remembers how fondly WWX spoke about WN that time they met at the Qishan Wen discussion conference, so he does not kill the elders and healers, a-yuan’s mother probably in early pregnancy. But since this is a nope AU he does kill the rest of the cultivators, (probably a-yuan’s father amongst them), ordering WQ and what’s left of her people to try to leave somewhere far away or to renounce the Wen name or something. Then WC & co meet the same end as the novel canon.

So, the sunshot campaign is won thanks to LWJ, JGS is dead and JZX is sect leader, engaged once again to JYL and JGY being his right-hand man or something. LWJ is now cultivating resentful energy (probably in a more moderated way) and WWX still in love but now feeling more guilty than before, since now his husband is walking the path he used to abhor. 

There’s tension between LQR and LWJ because of the heretic path and all that, it becomes worse since LQR makes it clear that he thinks LWJ’s decision to help WWX all the way back in the cave was foolish. WWX pours himself into researching a way of cultivating a golden core again, he sneaks into the forbidden section of the Library pavilion but is found by someone (Su She?) and then heavily punished by LQR.

This leads to a big argument between LQR and LWJ, WWX intervenes, they get punished, LQR rasping out when is finished “This is your fault, know that my nephew who I have raised as my own is now walking this path because of your insolence and arrogance. His pain is your doing.” Guess what, it’s super effective, more guilt piling onto WWX. But at the same time that’s when LWJ snaps, he takes WWX and leaves for Yiling, he’ll create a home for them where nobody will reproach his method of cultivation, where the hollowness of WWX’s eyes disappears into the brightness he fell in love with.

They find WQ’s group at the bottom of the burial mounds hiding. After LWJ’s attack, the cultivation world believed all the Wen at Yiling died. Together they form a settlement at BM. And they’re happy for a while, LWJ limits the use of resentful energy, WWX researching with the input of WQ and all the nice and soft interactions between them and the Wen remnants.

That is until they’re invited to JL’s 100th-day celebration, the ambush, both JZX and LXC appear here, but something goes wrong, LWJ loses control of his powers when he tries to use the STS, and just when the people brought for the ambush are about to shoot him LXC steps in the way. The arrows were poisoned, and struck vital points, he dies bleeding out in LWJ’s arms.

It’s all a blur, next thing he knows he’s kneeling inside the demon slaughtering cave, WWX speaking softly to him, almost in a pleading way, holding him and petting his head, “come back to me” “it wasn’t your fault” “I love you” “don’t leave me,” LWJ breaks down again, the death of his brother a pain too hard to bear.

The siege happens (Lead by Gusu Lan and Qinghe Nie) and LWJ, still too distraught for any clear thinking, uses the STS once more. Not without making WQ use her needles on WWX to make sure WWX and, say, A-yuan are out of harm's way. There’s a goodbye and one last kiss. He tries to hide them but he’s not fast enough and WWX catches LWJ being struck by LQR’s sword, the pain in the elder’s eyes apparent even if he’s trying to hide it in righteous fury.

JC finds them, WWX now free from the needles is holding a-yuan as if his life depends on it, he tries but he can’t help his brother. WWX married into Gusu Lan and he’s now being taken as a temporary prisoner by LQR, the older man still takes pity on A-yuan, so he brings him back promising no harm will be done to him.  

WWX heart is in shatters, everything, the downfall of his husband, the death of his brother in law, the mental breakdown that took away his Lan Zhan even before LQR did, everything was his fault. If he had not married Lan Zhan, if he hadn’t told uncle Jiang that he was more than fine with marrying LWJ, everything would’ve been fine, Lan Zhan would be alive, the Wen probably too.

Months later JC is at Cloud Recesses, demanding WWX to be brought back to LP, but he refuses, he refuses to taint something else, better to be a prisoner there than a free man endangering the lives of people he loves.

Thirteen years pass and there’s a distress flare signal shot from Mo village. There’s no second thought, WWX will be dead before something bad happens to a-yuan.

I was not able to make it a tragic tragic AU (of an AU), so here’s a hopeful ending at the last moment xD Also! Thank you so much for reading the original AU, it makes me so glad you enjoyed it c: