NIE MINGJUE

I like making characters lesbians. This is a Nie Mingjue blog at this point. | She/her, zij/haar | 20s | LifeOfRoos is my main blog and my AO3 | NSFW content | icon credit to the Bathroom In Museum karaoke bar, Köln

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Remember: any character cán be a lesbian

More than anyone 3zun <3

~

Hi!!! I’m Roos, I’m Dutch, I’m in my 20s, and this is my MDZS sideblog.

Posts will be mostly English, if interspersed with a bit of Dutch and German.

Mostly focused on Nie Mingjue and in a lesser amount Nie Huaisang, Jin Guangyao, Nieyao and Xuanli, but I also make posts about other characters and ships.

Tags that might be important to filter out: tw body horror, tw eating disorders, tw gore. This blog features written NSFW content

Ao3 link for convience ! I mostly write genderbents.

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It’s soooooo embarassing of Jin Zixuan to complain for years upon years about this girl who is beneath him and has low cultivation and is not beautiful and he doesn’t like her and he doesn’t want to marry her and he hates this betrothal and he hates her stupid brothers and she’s just so so so stupid and then once he actually gets to know Jiang Yanli his dumbass falls in love with her. Like realising she isn’t stupid is one thing but he full-on ends up falling for her hook line and sinker. I’d sink through the floor. He can be sooo happy she forgave him for all that omg

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Vielleicht freut sich ja jemand darüber (found on Vinted)

(Translation: It’s like a magazine with only images of Wang Yibo. Maybe somebody gets happy about that)

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The conversation that Jiang Femgmian and Jin Guangshan had to break off the engagement between Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli is so rife With characterisation… several posts are being written

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Did any other Dutch/European people notice that Seven Seas seems to have a lot of trouble shipping here? I work at a bookstore and even from there I can’t order most danmei aside from the ones written by MXTX.

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One of the weirdest popular ideas in this fandom continues to be that Nie Mingjue (raised in a heavily militarised setting where people seem to be free to talk about sexual subjects, his father had a wife and a concubine, little brother famously has a collection of porn) somehow knows next to nothing about sex while Lan Xichen (raised apart from women in a heavily regulated, monastery-like setting, raised apart from parents by an unmarried uncle, lives in an area where talk about sex was presumably banned or at least heavily taboo) is somehow the local sex expert

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Jin Guangshan would make a great populist politician. That guy would be amazing at making people think he cares so much about the troubles of the general public while in reality he’s only lining his own pockets even deeper

[wutheringheightsfilm]

where's wei wuxian with the bi flag for pride month

[wutheringheightsfilm]

HEHE

[winepresswrath]

No one asked Wen Ning about whether he wanted to be zombified and turned into a terrifying instrument of vengeance whose soul may or may not have been imperiled by this process, but also: he was dead or unconscious when the people who loved him made that call. They may not have thought very hard about what he would have wanted, but they also did not deliberately take away the chance for him to choose. When he comes to no one lies to him about what was done to him or what the costs or consequences were. He becomes a monster in the eyes of many, but he gets to make his own informed decisions about what he wants to do with that information and how he’s going to deal with whatever feelings he has about the process that lead him to still being (kind of) alive.

Conversely, Jiang Cheng initially experiences his own brush with mad science  as an unambiguously positive salvation. It’s a restoration rather than a loss of personhood in the eyes of his society. However! Unlike Wen Ning, his opinion of the procedure was available at the relevant moment; the people involved not only declined to ask but deliberately lied to him, and then lied more later on. He doesn’t have the opportunity to know the truth of what happened, let alone come to terms with it. By the time he discovers the full truth of what went down he has to contend with the consequences of 18 years of ignorance as well as the reality of what the surgery itself entailed.

And I just think that’s neat, and they should talk about it sometime.

[turtlesocksv2]

Adding: I would also like to see Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng talk, specifically about rebuilding sects and who is allowed to do that and who isn’t and also baby relatives and the opportunity to raise them and have them remember you. Mainly I just want Wen Ning to make Jiang Cheng cry again.

[winepresswrath]

Who got to go home and who got locked in an evil basement. Who has choked out Wei Wuxian in a moment of grief and rage and who has gotten choked out by Wei Wuxian in a moment of grief and rage. Hey, both of them have big sisters who died for him as well! And they also feel very differently about that.

[deadbeatadmirer]

Some manhua Lan Xichens

[aschenn-deactivated20200921]

“Both Jiang Cheng’s look and personality took after his mother” 

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This doesn’t do it justice. There’s more than this

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There used to be this program on Dutch tv where two teenagers swapped lives/families/schools for a few days. Like wife swap but with teenagers instead of wives. Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji should have done this

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I’ll take a picture tomorrow of how many sticky notes are in my MDZS copy, it’s honestly kind of ridiculous

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Lan Xichen, on the other hand, smiled. ‘And you two are?’

Jiang Cheng gestured in courtesy. ‘Jiang Wanyin of Yunmeng.’

Wei Wuxian gestured in courtesy as well. ‘Wei Wuxian of Yunmeng.’

Lan Xichen returned the greeting. Nie Huaisang squeaked, his voice soft as a mosquito’s. ‘Xichen-gege.’

Lan Xichen said, ‘Huaisang, I have recently returned from Qinghe. Your older brother was asking after your studies. How go things? Will you be able to pass this year?’

‘For the most part, yes…’ Nie Huaisang was like a wilted squash after frost, looking pleadingly at Wei Wuxian.

(MDZS, p. 166, trans. 7S)

In this bit, we meet Lan Xichen! (Well, he’s already there for a little bit in the modern day, but shh!) I wanted to shine a light on this part because of his interaction with Nie Huaisang. We see that Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian greet Xichen, their senior and the heir to the Lan clan, with a lot of respect. Even Wei Wuxian courtesies. Nie Huaisang, on the other hand, greets him with ‘Xichen-gege,’ insinuating a form of familiarity between them. It is, previously, also implied that Nie Huaisang already knows Wangji, although maybe that’s just from his precious years studying at Cloud Recesses. Further on, Lan Xichen just came back from Qinghe, with it being mentioned earlier in the book that there was a conference being held there. I love how it is implied with ‘Xichen-gege’ that Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen know each other well; otherwise, Nie Huaisang wouldn’t be calling him by such an informal name, especially not in front of others. Also, Nie Huaisang lying to Lan Xichen implies that he knows everything he says will go through Lan Xichen to his da-ge. He seems so nervous, poor Huaisang! It’s clear Nie Mingjue must be strict with him (but well, about wanting Nie Huaisang to do well in school instead of him slacking off).

There is also the following bit on the next page:

‘Although Nie Huaisang wanted to go with the party, the sight of Lan Xichen reminded him of his older brother and guilt seized him, so he didn’t dare lark around. ‘I’ll pass; I’ll go back and review my studies…’ this studious posturing was done in the hopes that next time, Lan Xichen would say more good things about him in front of his older brother.’ (MDZS, p. 167, trans. 7S)

They use the term ‘guilt’ here. I think this mostly implies that Nie Huaisang knows his brother wants him to do well, maybe he even understands it’s rather a privilige to receive this education, and he’s failing. That, or he’s just guilty he got caught slacking off by his brothers’ friend.

I think these moments are cute ánd they show that there is a strong friendship between Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue; it’s close enough that Nie Huaisang sees Lan Xichen as someone he can call gege and that Nie Huaisang knows Lan Xichen is keeping his brother updated about him. Nie Mingjue just seems like a strict parents who wants his brother to do well…

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‘Lan Zhan may be in the same classes as us, but he’s in charge of punishment in the Lan clan!’ - MDZS, p. 143, Seven Seas Edition

This sentence caught my eye. In the first place because the Lan clan lets a teenager be in charge of punishing people. No matter how much Lan Wangji is a model junior cultivator and a stickler for the rules, I still think it would be strange if a forty-year-old gets punished by a sixteen-year-old, especially in a cultivation setting. Having respect for your elders is a big thing and even a mentioned rule of the Lan clan. Maybe they mean he’s only in charge of deciding which punishments juniors like him get. This wouldn’t do his chances of friendship with peers any good, however, although I think young Lan Wangji doesn’t really care about that (or at least doesn’t know how to express that he cares about it). However, the wording implies he is in charge of ALL punishments in the Lan clan. Yet, the 7S translation is far from a perfect one, so maybe some nuance got lost between the Mandarin and the English text.

And my second point; is Lan Wangji supposed fo be in charge of punishment throughout the whole novel? Was he still technically in charge of punishment when he got those thirty-seven hits with the discipline whip…? I think this is something to keep in mind while continuing my reread.

[poorlittleyaoyao]

It’s unfortunate that MDZS isn’t mainstream enough to reference in casual offline conversation, because “this is what killed Nie Mingjue” is thee best possible way to describe an offensively grating piece of music and there is simply no normie equivalent.