elvella's trash bin

OK let Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing have a political marriage of convenience and  slowburn fall in love as they desperately try to save their people and are slowly forced via associating with their brothers to grimly take on saving everyone else as well.

also is anyone else charmed but a little alarmed by how all the Yunmeng Siblings go for people who are a combination of

tags by op

#this got me thinking about how unfazed wwx was by lwj being mean to him though. like i think it really didn’t register for him that much?#like sure he wanted to get a rise out of lwj bc he thought it was funny but also#being somebody’s punching bag isn’t new to him. being lashed out at for minor faults isn’t new to him#compared to madam yu and what he was dealing with on the streets this IS really just play fighting#and like. living in an environment where he can be punished at any time for any arbitrary reason (he breathed wrong in yzy’s presence)#he has two options: become incredibly meek and try to avoid punishment by never doing anything#or get used to punishment and learn how to endure it because it is going to happen and there’s nothing he can do about it.#and clearly he has gone with the second option. and that’s what he’s doing in cloud recesses too.#these 3k rules are so arbitrary and numerous and against his nature. there’s no way he’s not going to get punished#so there’s no reason for him to try particularly hard not to get in trouble.#and not only does lwj never actually hurt him he also protects him on occasion (e.g. the cold pool cave)#so in wwx’s mind that’s like. best friend material.#(the forehead ribbon is to wwx as a friendship bracelet is to a kid at summer camp)#the untamed#ANYWAY this post was about jiang cheng and wen qing and that part is ALSO galaxy brain#i would love to see them begrudgingly getting roped into supporting their brothers’ grand Causes for Justice#while they’re both like ‘i need to focus on my own goddamn family who the fuck are all these orphans’#well they’re YOUR orphans now. surprise!!! tags via @howdydowdy

Yes! And I think Jiang Cheng has kind of conditioned him to hear “your behaviour is APPALLING and you should be EMBARRASSED” as “I want to come play with you but I’m dutiful and repressed so you’re going to have to try a little harder to make me break. We’re going to have so much fun once you finally win me over!” There are people like Madam Yu and LQR who can’t be won over anyway and will always be looking for ways he’s a fuckup; people like JFM and Yanli who find him inherently delightful; and people who can be tormented into understanding his charms.

 they’re your orphans now. surprise!!! is just the essence of Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian’s bond  wen qing is also in the lan wangji jiang cheng category  but i think he respects that she’s between a rock and a hard place and is thus not quite so available for being annoyed into being bffs he’s a lot gentler with her     also he’s rightfully a little scared of her and lan zhan is special for many reasons but one of them  is that he promotes himself to co-captain of the Wei Wuxian is Amazing Actually Just the BEST club right when WWX is resigning himself to having to give up on being friends  with him after all that’s the very unexpected thing for him  i think  that even though he can’t be a charming/annoying ball of sunshine and fun for LWJ anymore and is doing a bunch of dark magic LWJ disapproves of for real   LWJ still wants him around     u continue to have such good tags and interesting thoughts and i both appreciate and am tormented by it      

Really my fave WangNingXian dynamic is Lan Wangji looking at Wen Ning and going “He is literally a part of Wei Ying, a physical manifestation of his soul, as essential and inextricable as his shadow. They share a bond totally unlike the bond I myself share with Wei Ying. They are so completely intertwined, if I am to love everything that is Wei Ying, I must love Wen Ning as well.” And Wen Ning looking at Lan Wangji and going “He is literally a part of Wei Wuxian, a physical manifestation of his heart, as essential and inextricable as the breath in his lungs. They share a bond totally unlike the bond I myself share with Wei Wuxian. They are so completely intertwined, if I am to love everything that is We Wuxian, I must love Lan Wangji as well.”

And then they both fucking commit to that.

so I can’t gif but I don’t think we talk enough about Wen Zhuliu, or this moment

the beginning of episode 19 is A Lot (the first time through, I literally went back to episode 18 like “wait did I miss something what’s going on,” but nope), and I know I personally got extremely distracted by the worldbuilding Wei Wuxian offers in his defiance to Wen Chao (i.e. becoming a terrifying ghost after death and haunting the hell out of the Wen Clan, which, well, he basically did anyway).

but we see Wei Wuxian get kicked through the doorway (whereupon he immediately does the Chest Grab of Pain, which becomes coded in the rest of the show as “his lack of a golden core is hurting him right now” but we don’t find out about this until episode 46), followed by Wen Zhuliu entering and looking at his hand

guys

Wen Zhuliu knows

Wen Zhuliu knows that Wei Wuxian has no golden core at this point, and he looks at his hand like that’s weird and I’m pretty sure I never touched this one and how can that be?

and while this is comedy gold for the rest of the episode (every time Wen Chao tries to intimidate Wei Wuxian with melting his golden core, Wei Wuxian is like “lol good luck with that” and Wen Zhuliu is like “…do I tell him now?”), I can’t help but wonder if Wen Zhuliu silently figured out the golden core transfer

Wei Wuxian is thrown, golden core-less, into the Burial Mounds for three months. meanwhile, Jiang Cheng – who Wen Zhuliu viscerally knows should be an average person by now – is leading part of the revolution against the Wen Clan. He might not know the specifics of experimental medical surgeries but Wen Zhuliu can do simple math, he may be the strong and silent type but that doesn’t mean he can’t count

I think this is why, in episode 20, Wen Zhuliu barely fights Wei Wuxian when he comes for Wen Chao, because internally he’s going “damn son you crawled out of hell without a golden core, you deserve to win this one”

One of the things that frustrates me the most about the mdzs fandom is that they don't understand that Wei Ying was just a scapegoat. Yes, he has plenty of faults. He was stubborn, reckless, and tactless. But that was never the reason the cultivation world turned on him. It was always about him wanting to save the Wens remnants and his desire to hold the ones that caused some of their deaths accountable. There was no way to reason with them. I think many of us know in the face of bigotry and discrimination there was no number of sit downs that would have changed the mindset of the people who already think they're justified in considering themselves above others. You can see mxtx point this out in tgcf too. Not to mention, every second Wei Ying would have taken to try and convince the other clans to let the Remnants go the higher the death count would be. Bodies thrown into a muddy ditch to rot. This is proven by the fact that no matter how quickly Wei Ying had tried to find the Remnants, by the time he arrived, Wen Ning was already dead.

Even then after getting his justice, he does not expand his efforts into revenge. He just steals the Remnants away into the night to find somewhere safe for them to live and thrive. Away from everyone else. He simply wanted peace for them and himself. A conviction he showed when he willingly defected from the Jiang Clan because he didn't want to drag down their reputation with him.

Whatever fault you might see in him, it had nothing to do with how the clans treated him in the end. Just like Madame Yu, they blamed him for everything under the sky even though they had no proof. If you provoked a snake simply wanting to protect it's young, should you be surprised when they fight back?

Epic Gamer Dad Teaches His Cringe Son Not To Eat Necromancy Lotus Seeds | Episode 31

siblings :’)

— the untamed (2019), episode 44

WangXian's first and last lines.

#the amount of power in this scene

This scene made me so sad.

Wei Wuxian himself is wounded and his concern for Lan Zhan and anger at him being hurt just hits me in the gut.

Also, Wen Ning is such a sweetheart. Protect that child at all costs 🥹

OKAY so like, THIS is one of the most counter-intuitive aspects of Jiang Cheng’s entire character. This is a man who was raised with his mother verbally abusing him with relentless haranguing about how he’s less impressive than Wei Wuxian whenever she’s not shaming him for loving- or even being friendly with- his adopted sect brother. This is a man who was emotionally abused by his father’s cold and distant attitude and clear favoritism towards Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng is AMBITIOUS and SELF-CONSCIOUS and desperate for his parent’s approval. When Wei Wuxian outshoots him in that first pair of gifs (in front of all the other disciples, no less!) anyone watching the show for the first time would TOTALLY expect Jiang Cheng to pitch a fit or at least stalk away in high dudgeon. 

But he doesn’t.

He smiles. Not only smiles, but smirks, like, “…Saw THAT coming.”

He is proud of his brother. 

He is so, so proud. And proud to be Wei Wuxian’s brother.

Before the time-skip, Jiang Cheng actually doesn’t really dwell on how Wei Wuxian is better than him. How much he’s going to get them in trouble, sure! How his arrogance is writing checks his abilities can’t cash, of course! How he just won’t get it through his thick skull that there are political consequences to his fucking actions, all the time! But not a constant green-eyed envy.

(Now, yes, there’s a bit of dwelling on the subject after the whole Dad-says-I’ve-missed-the-whole-point-of-our-clan-motto-and-then-mom-dragged-me-between-the-two-of-them-and-yelled-about-how-pathetic-I-am-and-how-other-people-think-Wei Wuxian-is-much-cooler-than-me-and-then-confirmed-the-fact-that-dad-doesn’t-like-me-very-much debacle, but in light of the whole situation, Jiang Cheng’s very understandable sulk-fest was focused much more on his own shortcomings or the general injustice of the situation as opposed to envy or resentment against Wei Wuxian himself.)

This is going to dovetail with a post I’m planning on writing about the Jiang sibling trio and love languages, but I personally think that it’s because more than anyone else- more than even Yanli- Jiang Cheng has grown up knowing with absolute certainty that Wei Wuxian loves him. I headcanon (and will die on the hill) that Jiang Cheng’s love language is physical touch. Yanli is affectionate but more physically reserved, whereas Wei Wuxian is constantly draping himself over Jiang Cheng, shoving him with his shoulder, slinging an arm around him, even punching him and getting into physical scuffles. Jiang Cheng is constantly hearing his brother say “hey I love you hey I love you hey I love you!”, and with all of that unspoken evidence poured over him almost every waking moment of his life, the poison from his mother and the ice from his father just… doesn’t stick. Even when he’s frantic and beside himself with grief over his parents’ deaths, accusing Wei Wuxian of being the source of their misfortune, Jiang Cheng is still is grabbing him, shoving and shaking him, even choking him- still actively seeking physical touch to process his grief. We only see the poison really start to sink in after Wei Wuxian returns from the Burial Mounds and becomes so distant. The more he pulls away, the more he avoids physically engaging with Jiang Cheng (”What? You want to fight?!”), the more the latter begins to doubt Wei Wuxian’s love for him, the more the latter thinks that Wei Wuxian doesn’t give a fuck about him or their sect family anymore. 

And what is the turning point after the time skip and sixteen years of seething grief, bitterness, and resentment? Not just after he’s vented his feelings in the temple, but after Wei Wuxian reaches out to him and strokes his face. After his brother gently wipes the tear from his cheek. After Wei Wuxian finally says- in the unspoken language that Jiang Cheng understands best- “I still love you.” 

It’s only after that that we see Jiang Cheng once more look at Wei Wuxian, able to be proud of his brother’s accomplishments because he once more is assured of his love.

The Untamed🐰EP24

*cough* pre-death wwx is definitely a top *cough*

Best A-Yuan Moments!

The Untamed | Don’t talk while eating.

The Untamed | Staring each other down to assert dominance

The Untamed || Lan Wangji + taking A-yuan (and probably Wei Wuxian’s heart too)