charming, to the last

flynn ∘ 20s ∘ gifmaker star wars lover and imperial trash tracking #tarrkin

[spixycong]

Venerated Triad

[fanofspooky]

“If I am the Phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I shall be saved, it will be because your love redeems me.”

[unicorngelato]

Every fifth TGCF textpost: people are wrong about the Character

Every fifth MDZS textpost: nobody understands the Themes

Every fifth SVSSS textpost: what if Shen Yuan transmigrated into a pregnant flea

[psqqa]

i guess i’ll just have to give a quick sparknotes edition of the Gregor :D and Gregor :( moments i Experienced but that tumblr Cruelly Prevented me from throwing out into the void in real time because so much of gregor’s part in this book is just lois mcmaster bujold taking me gently by the hand and saying “i see your love for ‘character who is perhaps not widely considered to be incapable but whose achievements tend to be overshadowed or undersold or whatever is shown to be genuinely competent and has that competence explicitly acknowledged and appreciated’. i see you.”

not unlike how i felt in this moment

Oh, Gregor

probably wise

so many of these are my emotions being torn between :D Gregor you beautiful competent bastard and :( part of Gregor will always be that little boy asking Cordelia at his mother’s funeral if they’re going to kill him too

THIS IS THE GREGOR I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR 

:)

:D

:DDDD

[psqqa]

Oh, Gregor :(

Oh, Gregor :( :( :( :(

this is like the 10th time miles has said this, gregor. at some point you’re going to have to accept you are actually a competent person who knows what he is doing. or perhaps more accurately, that even if fate has dealt you a hand that keeps you out of the action your peers are involved in, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t do it. you could, probably a lot better than many of them, but you can do this better, and it’s what is needed of you. be glad, you could have ended up in a job you weren’t good at, or capable of getting good at. also, don’t compare yourself to miles vorkosigan. just. don’t.

[nimmieamee]

I have never been on the same page as fandom’s clear communication fetishists and I never will be. I love miscommunication, concealment, pigheadedness, and lies. I think characters should talk around what they have to say and ignore each other and impute needs and beliefs onto others that have nothing to do with those other people and everything to do with maintenance of the ego. A little clear communication is fine but it should come at the end and be earned by repeated instances of snobbery, tomfoolery, self righteousness, or blockheadedness. If you decide you hate a character just because that character isn’t communicating in the way a therapist might coach them to, well consider that people don’t actually talk like that at all and that most of us get things wrong many times before we inch our way out of the labyrinthine darkness of our own heads.

[lansplaining]

could you give me some reasons why you ship chengqing? I'd just like to understand why it's so popular(I have not watched cql so imagine my surprise when I went looking for wq solo content and got so much jc!)

Unless a lot has changed since I last looked, I can’t quite call it “popular”… but I’d imagine it probably is frustrating if you’re trying to find solo WQ 😔

CQL was my first exposure to the story, so the seed was planted for me early on. Jiang Cheng was one of my favourite characters from the start so this little unrequited romance was a nice mini-subplot with yearning and love tokens carried for years and love denied in favour of duty which are all things I love.

I think the thematic and personality resonances of Wen Qing and Jiang Cheng are just so compelling. They understand one another, and neither of them really has anyone in their life who does. I think they could make each other really happy, and that’s exactly why they never will. They both like each other because they respect someone would never choose romantic love over familial love and duty.

Some people also like the whole eroticism of nonconsensual surgery/she is his creation thing, which i intellectually am intrigued by but have yet to see a fic that makes me Feel it. It’s all about the star-crossed oldest siblings for me. Who are also both bitches.

[prokopetz]

I understand that you were aiming for a morally grey protagonist, but in practice what you've ended up with is more of a moral beige.

[stupiddumbassblog]

[dick-hardboiled]

There is absolutely a platonic explanation for that

[dick-hardboiled]

But I will also entertain the non platonic for my own edification do u understand

[goldensunset]

[professorsparklepants]

Chengqing au where Wen Qing is a modern doctor who ends up accidentally hitting a handsome cosplayer with her car and takes him (back) to the hospital, only to find out halfway through signing him in at the ER that his sword is not plastic. Meanwhile Jiang Cheng is trying to think through his concussion to figure out where the fuck he is and why his former crush who is definitely supposed to be dead is not only here, but also wearing criminally tight pants.

[professorsparklepants]

Wen Qing changed out of her surgical scrubs into leggings and an over sized tshirt before she left work, so the whole time they’re waiting at the ER she’s like “huh, he’s a lot more quiet than he was in the car, maybe his concussion is worse than I thought” and Jiang Cheng is just like “LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS”

[henshengs]

after the second siege of the Burial Mounds, the minor clans gather to vent their frustration on the unfortunate Moling Su sect. A guilt-ridden Lan Xichen races to Moling hoping to prevent a second massacre, and arrives just in time to stop the mob from killing a young Su disciple who Lan Xichen immediately recognizes as a disguised, alive Jin Rusong.

[henshengs]

A-Song has spent a decade being told over and over that he must never talk to any Jin clan members, because they’re our patrons and must not be offended by stupid boys and their prattle; and he also must never talk to any Lan clan members, because they’re the worst and we hate them.

Now a mob is burning down his home and trying to kill his family and Lan-zongzhu has kidnapped him and is taking him back to Cloud Recesses for unknown purposes. I think he bites LXC trying to escape

[henshengs]

LXC manages to convince the minor sects that no one else needs to die, on the condition that all Moling Su property is confiscated and distributed among the other sects and the Su disciples are watched and forbidden from cultivating ever again. LXC, who has finally found his hill to die on, will not have this for A-Song. He takes him back to Cloud Recesses and announces that he’s adopting this 11 year old as his son.

This is too much for the elders. With Lan Yuan, they could at least pretend to convince themselves that even the peerless Hanguang-jun might have had a teenage indiscretion and the child still had Lan blood. Everyone knows that’s not what’s going on here, and even if LXC makes it clear that Lan NewName is not in the succession, having a Su kid that close to the leadership is a huge no. But this turns out to be the point that LXC pulls the classic Lan move and threatens to resign from the Sect.

It’s a massively romantic gesture that A-Song completely fails to appreciate because he’s being forcibly turned into a LAN?! He has to live away from his family in this horrible awful fascist nightmare place for the rest of his life?! The food sucks? Literally everyone here hates him except for the creepy corpse guy and his weirdo nephew who is being suspiciously nice? Lan-zongzhu is setting off every STRANGER DANGER alarm he’s ever been taught and keeps giving him unsolicited critique on his guqin playing like he’s his shizun, fuck off old man

[henshengs]

You might think he would get along with Lan Jingyi, but no, Lan Jingyi is his mortal enemy for saying AWFUL LIES about the Su Sect. The worst indignity of his life is having to suffer through line-copying detention with Lan Jingyi all the time.

(At one point someone tries to assign the kid physical discipline for all his rule breaking. Lan Xichen's reaction terrifies everyone so much that all the juniors have been granted a reprieve for the moment.)

[henshengs]

After thinking about it I think he should look e x a c t l y like JGY for maximum LXC torment, and I think once this gets generally Noticed there are a lot of jokes about how the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree if Lianfang-zun was screwing his right hand man’s wife/sister/disciple/whoever mom is assumed to be, just like his dear old dad…

When Lan NewName hears Lan Jingyi speculating about it he kicks him in the shins, LJY dunks him in the river, they both get detention again and LJY’s friends give him endless grief for beefing with a fifth grader

[sleepy-salami]

The number of times the word "fuck" (and its derivatives) is said by MDZS characters (in the Seven Seas translation), ranked:

🥇 Wei Wuxian: 23 times (9 times if you only count the curses and not his suggestions to Lan Wangji in explicit scenes)

🥈Jiang Cheng: 8 times

🥉Xue Yang: 7 times

Nie Huaisang: 1 time

Wen Chao: 1 time

Jin Ling: 1 time

Jin Guangyao: 1 time

special mention to A-Qing for the most creative swearing:

[sleepy-salami]

inspired by the recent poll and me reaching this moment in the story

[qiu-yan]

theory 1: jiang cheng, just like everyone else, disdains jin guangyao for being the son of a prostitute.

theory 2: jiang cheng, breaking from convention, has no particular thoughts or feelings about jin guangyao. he does not really care about jin guangyao's parentage.

theory 3: not only does jiang cheng not care about jin guangyao's parentage, but jiang cheng also thinks highly of jin guangyao. this is due to jin guangyao's incredible efficiency in running jinlintai, his being a reasonable sect leader jin (especially compared to jin guangshan), and his peaceful reign as chief cultivator.

theory 4: jiang cheng thinks highly of jin guangyao, due to a 13-year mostly-successful history of coparenting jin ling with him.

theory 5: jiang cheng has this 13-year mostly-successful history of coparenting jin ling with jin guangyao, but hates his ass anyways because jin guangyao is raising jin ling WRONG and is SPOILING HIM and does things like GET HIM DOGS (why dogs????) WITHOUT JIANG CHENG'S PERMISSION

theory 6: jiang cheng thinks poorly of jin guangyao not because of his status as a son of a prostitute, but rather because jiang cheng is 100000% convinced that jin guangyao is cheating on qin su with lan xichen. truly, lianfang-zun, you are your father's son.

theory 7: as described above, jiang cheng fully believes that jin guangyao is cheating on qin su with lan xichen; however, jiang cheng does not care about this infidelity. instead, the only reason why jiang cheng hates jin guangyao's ass is because THE INFIDELITY IS SETTING A BAD EXAMPLE FOR A-LING, YOU ASSHOLE, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE MODELING A HEALTHY MARRIAGE FOR A-LING

[qiu-yan]

#theory 7 does imply a very funny belief of modeling a Good Marriage for jin ling. in which case itd be funny if This#this is what makes jiang cheng get married. to be a Better Role Model for jin ling than jgy

#whoever he chooses has to go into it Knowing this and thinking its a. funny as hell b. petty but loves being petty.#or c. wei wuxian in someones body and in it for a Weird Long Con that he doesnt care to examine his feelings on rn

#conversely. jc gets married to a couple so that he can model Double good marriage. take that jgy#idk who'd this be tho. mianmian and her husband for the pure hilarity and full circle nature of the previous generation with wwx's parents

excellent tags via @psyfi

discussion question for the class: who (singular or plural), for the purpose of Modeling a Good Marriage for A-Ling, should jiang cheng marry?

[psyfi]

if we are participating in Wei Wuxian's Foolproof Plan on Not Being Murdered By His Shidi via Long Con Marriage, im guessing wwx is brought back in the body of an isolated single daughter, who lacking any other option, summons wwx to prevent a tragedy for her family? or for revenge on a suitor? one way or another, he returns a few years after his death, safe as the sole child of a small sect in yunmeng

through some means, he learns jiang cheng is looking for a wife, and while he's slowly been in the process of being blacklisted, his list of requirements seem to be greatly reduced!

this is perfect for wwx, who can fulfill the two requirements, one spoken and one unspoken: be a good role model for jin ling, and be absolutely Down To Clown (on jgy. but this is all for jin ling)

so he gets to be jin ling's aunt! (which is Interesting. being a woman. he is not examining his feelings on this turn of events and how Unbothered he is about that aspect) but he's not his uncle. never his uncle, that boat has sailed. but he knows all of jc's quirks, his likes, his dislikes, his "I'll say I hate this but I actually like it but I have to save face in front of others, Wei Wuxian-"

point being! he'll be back in lotus pier. close to the people he loves. and he can leave the past behind.

jiang cheng just. can never know it's him.

nothing could go wrong.

right?

[qiu-yan]

👀👀👀

[qiu-yan]

additional tags:

#points to consider: holy shit wwx's breeding kink in conjunction with the social expectation that JC needs kids/heirs? frying him. ko#by which I mean I like to think jc started with the “just a political marriage. we don't HAVE to–”#wwx: oh we're Gonna#wwx selling it to himself as “gotta see what sex as a woman is like”#unfortunately since he's never had sex as a man he's also asking jc a ton of specific questions about what it feels like#as of course the totally innocent anonymous jiang-furen#anyways.#jc enters a political marriage that's weirdly exactly to his taste and needs hahaha#but still running his “wwx is probably coming back as a demonic cultivator” campaign of terror?#idk man give me ten thousand words about jiang-furen getting enthusiastically bloodthirsty about torturing random demonic cultivators#in the name of “atoning for wwx's crimes as a sect”#chengxian via @ahavaas

#chengxian modeling good marriage is how jin ling takes a vow of celibacy#jc (silently): see jin ling this is how you should be#jl (looking at jiujiu's cringe wife): i'm coming out. as embarrassed of you. via @spriteofmushrooms

wei wuxian, as jiang cheng's wife, designing the lotus pier torture dungeons.....building all the torture instruments himself.....adding a commemorative plaque to the entrance.....while pregante

jin ling watching this shit go down: xiao-shushu i'm scared can you come pick me up now

[ahavaas]

@psyfi tags hang on I gotchu. we can make jin ling's life worse.

[qiu-yan]

#because this is right about the time lwj is physically healed but still in complete disgrace right?#so. jc (operation Model Marriage not working with random woman JL finds cringe. he's a FAILURE. fuck) looks for the best reputation around#lan xichen is like ok home isn't the best place for my baby brother. he's able to walk now; pack him off to the jiang

#jc to lwj: ok ok ok my wife is kinda weird just roll with it we are SETTING A GOOD EXAMPLE FOR MY NEPHEW #lwj 2 seconds later: omg wei ying! #wwx: lan zhan do NOT ruin this for me. there is a plan and the plan is: don't get murdered by jc

#cue relatively happy period#(look. jc did not appreciate lwj looking at him like shit on his shoe for several years but does not otherwise have existing beef with him)#so if his wives want to mess around together well at least they're not divorcing him about it#Happy Marriage for Jin Ling#there's no INFIDELITY there's no RESENTMENT in HIS marriage#second jade of lan just took a shine to jiang-furen as anyone might! this is normal it's all very NORMAL

#up until such time as idk he overhears lwj saying wei ying (fondly? throes of passion? in some exasperation? you pick)#and goes for zidian#but like#until then!#they have a good time

tags via @ahavaas

jesus christ you guys just keep making this more nuts

[ahavaas]

@qiu-yan a brief aside on Homosexuality

sorry guys post is already too long coming out of the tags about it:

see, if wwx comes back as a woman she's figuring out her gender shit, good for her, good for her, but this does mean that the homosexuality is not getting resolved.

(personally i don't think lwj is navigating the "I had a gay crush on you when we were teens" conversation very successfully; wwx is in a woman's body so it's normal to find jc and lan zhan sexually attractive now; wwx is in a Hot Woman's body so it's normal for lan zhan to find her sexually attractive now. (idk if she could handle thinking about jc expressing sexual attraction towards him/wwx; a-cheng is of course dutiful to his wife and it's fun to tease him into sex, but of course all the affection/sexual attraction jc displays would immediately evaporate if he knew it was wwx (the yanli situation, gay situation.)

(I do think jc would consider a political marriage with a man primarily for Jin Ling, as in jgy committed some egregious xiyao in front of him/qin su and he went (silently) ok. I will Model the Correct Behavior. legal marriage. none of this wicked adultery. suck it, jgy.)

got distracted okay uhh my point.

if jc floats the idea of a political marriage with a man to wwx (woman's body) wwx is having a freakout about the possibility that jiang cheng is gay that is only getting soothed when jc makes it super clear this is about getting the moral high ground on Jin Ling's Cheater Uncle. do I think jc would briefly approach xichen like Hey Do You Want Someone to Make an Honest Man Out of You (homewrecker)? yes. xichen deliberately misunderstands him to assume he's talking about lwj.

jc and lwj are both men and if lwj ever expressed the slightest interest in jc I think wwx would go completely feral about it. Not Based. Not Based at all!

wwx: lan zhan who knew jiang cheng would grow up so handsome etc etc

lwj (a gay man terribly relieved that his love isn't dead, under the assumption they're idly chatting about objectively attractive people): mm. agreed.

wwx (kill bill sirens activate): WHAT did you say about my shidi. WHAT kind of unnatural salacious INTENTIONS do you have towards him???

[maikhiwi00]

A-Yao, may we see what's inside your treasure vault? Er-ge, it's called a treasure vault, which means the things put inside are supposed to be hidden away. So...

THE UNTAMED (2019) — episode 41

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

La petite mort

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[sleepy-salami]

since i've seen that sentiment many times before: the cultivators attending the pledge conference weren't hypocrites who wanted wei wuxian dead even after the wen siblings had sacrificed themselves. the surrender failed. it was an important thing that happened.

whatever the real reason was, in the eyes of everyone in the jianghu, the yiling patriarch's ghost general pretended to surrender, only to murder over thirty people instead - including cultivators from the lan and the nie clans, who were previously unaffected by wei wuxian's actions and remained neutral on the issue. the pledge conference, where all clans gathered to plan their attack on wei wuxian, was a direct response to that, and you can't call this response unreasonable.

[slytherinzidian]

#I do think it's important as part of. like. the spiralling into tragedy as events spin out of any one individual's control#which is not to say that no one bears any responsibility at all#just that nobody wanted this to go down this way and that has to include even jin guangshan#he's a piece of shit but I'm pretty sure he didn't want to get his only legitimate kid killed

[pokemoniker]

Ultimately most attempts to #Explain why women are into gay erotica will fail because 1. old-school BL is different from 2000s BL is different from modern BL which is different from slash fandoms for non-BL manga/anime which is different from slash fandoms for American live-action television which is different from actual live-action gay porn 2. everybody in the world has a subtly different reason for doing everything

[arkaniist]

peer reviewed prev tags from @one4theoverlypassionate because this oh my god this. every single time i see people complaining en mass about BL (in the context of it being something only icky fujos like) they start describing a kind of hyperspecific niche subgenre of femboy kink yaoi that only existed in the 2000s and i'm like my brothers and sisters in christ please do even the bare minimum of research into the state of BL in 2026 before you start complaining about it.

[susiephone]

if you want to read more but have trouble finishing things, i really recommend short story collections (ESPECIALLY anthologies by multiple authors) and literary magazines. if one story sucks you can just skip to the next one, and anthologies and magazines will have work by multiple authors so you get a wide variety of styles, and if you find a story you really really like, you can look to see if that author's published anything else.

i'm not as well-versed in literary magazines as i should be (trying to fix that), but here are short story collections i suggest:

lesser known monsters of the 21st century by kim fu (speculative fiction, horror). personal favorite story: "pre-simulation consultation xf007867"

the paper menagerie and other stories by ken liu (speculative fiction). personal favorite story: "the litigation master and the monkey king"

slasher girls and monster boys by various (horror). personal favorite story: "the birds of azalea street"

what we fed to the manticore by talia lakshmi kolluri (literary fiction). personal favorite story: "the hunted, the haunted, the hungry, the tame"

africa risen by various (afrofuturism, speculative fiction). personal favorite story: "a dream of electric mothers"

a small apocalypse by laura chow reeve (literary fiction). personal favorite story: "real bodies"

the secret lives of church ladies by deesha philyaw (literary fiction). personal favorite story: "dear sister"

a phoenix first must burn by various (speculative fiction). personal favorite story: "wherein abigail fields recalls her first death and, subsequently, her best life"

woman hollering creek and other stories by sandra cisneros (literary fiction). personal favorite story: "woman hollering creek"

bliss montage by ling ma (literary fiction). personal favorite story: "yeti lovemaking"

how to love a jamaican by alexia arthurs (literary fiction). personal favorite story: "the ghost of jia yi"

radicalized by cory doctorow (speculative fiction). personal favorite story: "radicalized"

life ceremony by sayaka murata (literary fiction, horror). personal favorite story: "life ceremony"

shit cassandra saw by gwen e. kirby (literary fiction). personal favorite story: "here preached his last"

through the woods by e.m. carroll (horror). personal favorite story: "his face all red"