waterscroll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
waterscroll) wrote2020-09-25 08:51 am
waterscroll) wrote2020-09-25 08:51 am
Entry tags:
The Untamed, up to episode 40
...also finished the animated version. Reading the novel slowly. I have a feeling I'm going to like novelverse WWX much better, but I feel like I need to pay more attention when reading, and attention and focus are scarce in my life right now. Similarly I feel like I have lots of thoughts about Themes and Such but my brain is too fogged to really articulate them. So instead here's a post about what I am shipping and not shipping right now, with some recs:
WWX/LWJ: I'm not really very excited about their dramaverse dynamic, in which WWX never did anything wrong and LWJ always believed in him. I tend to get much more interested in what looks like their novelverse dynamic, in which WWX did lots of things wrong (but was generally well intentioned) and LWJ loved him even while he was in the middle of doing things wrong. Here are two stories I enjoyed set during the Yiling Patriarch times:
Rare the man who'll hold to faith by Fahye. A Sir Gawain and the Green Knight AU which works oddly well.
the shadow of a name in skin" by iliacquer. LWJ loves WWX no matter what he's become or what he's lost. Dark but with a happy ending. The author has a bunch like this.
LXC/JGY: Now this is what I'm looking for in a ship. I love my sweet-faced emotionally manipulative villains so JGY was always going to be of interest to me. LXC is also fascinating because he is so good and so kind and extremely fair-minded, but in this universe none of those things can save you from enabling evil. He's also an adult with adult responsibilities from the beginning of canon (at least in dramaverse), which I appreciate. I like how in the dramaverse it's completely clear how much they love each other from the beginning, and that the love between them in no way saves them or helps them become better people. My favorite fics for them are pretty dark, so please note the tags on all fics.
nothing left to burn by everyearning. Also includes some not very nice LXC/LSZ. LXC tries to deal with his guilt over everything that happened and LSZ is the only one who really understands that he has anything to feel guilty about.
Nothing to leave behind by jjtaylor. LXC tries to bring JGY back to life. As it happens, JGY is already alive, but that doesn't mean anything can be fixed.
Verses by quigonejinn. LXC keeps JGY as a captive in seclusion without his memories and JGY has to reconstruct what happened and what to do about it. The author has a bunch of very good and interestingly structured fics that I like a lot.
LXC/JC: I am unfortunately way too into LXC/JGY to get into this pairing. I don't want LXC to get over JGY too quickly or too completely, and I also don't want JC to be anyone's second best. So I think this ship is not going to be for me.
JC/NHS: It's got a lot of potential and I'm enjoying reading it. I could see them liking each other, they'd remind each other of their respective brothers. I feel like the ship looks very different depending on when they get together and when you think NHS became a manipulative bastard. If they get together as teenagers, and if you assume that NHS was kind of manipulative but not full-blown chessplayer back then, it's actually kind of sweet. Here's one I like:
Yumeng spice by a_stands_for. Mostly a PWP, but optimistic.
If they get together later, or if you assume that NHS was a chessplayer from the beginning, what it comes up against for me is my very strong feeling that do not want to see JC manipulated and lied to for his own good ever again, and a lot of NHS/JC fics write their dynamic that way, with NHS chessmastering them to a happy ending. I also don't think JC is any dumber than NHS, he rebuilt his sect from nothing in months in the middle of a war. I think what I'd like to see in this ship is something like the NHS/NMJ relationship in Fatal Journey, where they respect each other's very different kinds of intelligence and see things in each other that other people don't see. I haven't seen exactly that, but here's a NHS/JC that I like anyway:
our footsteps sing a restless serenade by ThirtySixSaveFiles, modern AU with magic, everybody lives, arranged marriage. NHS and JC work together to repair the imbalance in the city caused after the destruction of the Wens.
JC/WWX: I continue to be very invested in this ship, but no new recs. As I continue in canon a part of me feels like this relationship just has too much baggage to be fixed and the best thing is for them to go away from each other. But I am also compelled by fixit fics in which the fixit is actually very simple, not much more than WWX (with or without LWJ) showing up at Lotus Pier and saying hi, I'm back, going to stay now, is that ok? And of course JC says yes, and they go back to alternating punching and hugging like they used to.
JC/WQ: The ship is so interesting in potential but I thought canon made a terrible mess of it, at least after the golden core transfer. Here's a fic I like that manages to spackle canon a bit by having Jiang Cheng save Wen Qing but not tell anyone or go to her because he doesn't feel like he deserves any credit or happiness for it:
display my heart for you to see by Sour_Idealist.
JC/LJY: I love this ship beyond all reason and I think I've read everything in the tag. I don't know if I can even explain the appeal, beyond a chance for JC to be happy in a non-fraught way. I also really like the idea of a Lan coming to live with the Jiangs. I think the nature of the reconstituted Jiang clan is vastly underexplored in canon (at least in dramaverse) and it fascinates me. In particular: that all or most of the Jiangs (possibly a few survived?) are new recruits, recruited and trained by Jiang Cheng or someone personally trained by him. The Jiang clan, unlike the Lans, don't have written rules, it's all oral traditions, which are broken when a generation is killed. So Jiang Cheng had to not just recruit all these new disciples but more or less reformulate Jiang traditions for them. I find this super-fascinating, and I think Lan Jingyi coming to live among the Jiangs is an excellent POV character for thinking about what this looks like. If I end up writing a fic for this canon, that is probably what it will be.
(And since I'm doing Jiang Cheng apologism here, I am starting to suspect that he didn't actually kill any demonic cultivators. I mean I'm sure he captured them and yelled at them and probably smacked them with zidian. But I am starting to suspect that he recruited them. It seems that the people drawn to demonic cultivation were people who wanted to be cultivators but didn't have the ability or training, and that's exactly the sort of person that Jiang Cheng needs for his rebuilt sect. Someone who takes the initiative to become a cultivator by any means necessary would probably make a good Jiang. If offered a way to join a proper sect, they might even agree to tell horrifying-sounding stories about what Jiang Cheng does to demonic cultivators in exchange.)
Ok that was a big digression, back to shipping.
LSZ/JL: I like this ship a lot. I'm starting to become convinced that Jin Ling is in some ways the stealth protagonist, and that the story is about him learning the history of what happened because he's going to be the one to carry all the legacies of his many uncles and take the cultivation world forward. Meanwhile LSZ embodies some of this complicated history. No recs right now, but I'm still reading.
NHS/NMJ: I'm very interested in theory but I have yet to find the right fic.
JYL/WQ: I am really not sure why this is a thing other than that they are the only two women of their generation in canon, but I am willing to be convinced by the right fic.
LY/BSR: I am so grateful to The Untamed for making this canon, what a wonderful ship, I just wish we'd seen more of it. Baoshan Sanren and Lan Yi are both very interesting people. I like how their relationship mirrors the WWX/LWJ relationship two generations earlier and I think there's a lot of room for exploring it. No fic recs yet but I'm looking.
I also *really* like how Wei Wuxian, Lan Wanji and Jiang Cheng each have a significant woman teacher figure from whom they inherit some of their powers. For a canon that is so terrible on women in general, it is really very very good about having the male characters take women teachers seriously.
Some good fics for rare ships:
Four Worlds by nirejseki. Four Jiang Yanli/Jin Guangyao AUs, because why not. The author has some other excellent rare pairing fics.
utility by magicities, Jiang Yanli/Nie Mingjue in a political marriage while they are each involved romantically with other people.
Peony-Shaped Clouds by Starra. Jin Ling/Lan Qiren, yes really. Only one chapter up so far but I can't wait to see how it goes.
WWX/LWJ: I'm not really very excited about their dramaverse dynamic, in which WWX never did anything wrong and LWJ always believed in him. I tend to get much more interested in what looks like their novelverse dynamic, in which WWX did lots of things wrong (but was generally well intentioned) and LWJ loved him even while he was in the middle of doing things wrong. Here are two stories I enjoyed set during the Yiling Patriarch times:
Rare the man who'll hold to faith by Fahye. A Sir Gawain and the Green Knight AU which works oddly well.
the shadow of a name in skin" by iliacquer. LWJ loves WWX no matter what he's become or what he's lost. Dark but with a happy ending. The author has a bunch like this.
LXC/JGY: Now this is what I'm looking for in a ship. I love my sweet-faced emotionally manipulative villains so JGY was always going to be of interest to me. LXC is also fascinating because he is so good and so kind and extremely fair-minded, but in this universe none of those things can save you from enabling evil. He's also an adult with adult responsibilities from the beginning of canon (at least in dramaverse), which I appreciate. I like how in the dramaverse it's completely clear how much they love each other from the beginning, and that the love between them in no way saves them or helps them become better people. My favorite fics for them are pretty dark, so please note the tags on all fics.
nothing left to burn by everyearning. Also includes some not very nice LXC/LSZ. LXC tries to deal with his guilt over everything that happened and LSZ is the only one who really understands that he has anything to feel guilty about.
Nothing to leave behind by jjtaylor. LXC tries to bring JGY back to life. As it happens, JGY is already alive, but that doesn't mean anything can be fixed.
Verses by quigonejinn. LXC keeps JGY as a captive in seclusion without his memories and JGY has to reconstruct what happened and what to do about it. The author has a bunch of very good and interestingly structured fics that I like a lot.
LXC/JC: I am unfortunately way too into LXC/JGY to get into this pairing. I don't want LXC to get over JGY too quickly or too completely, and I also don't want JC to be anyone's second best. So I think this ship is not going to be for me.
JC/NHS: It's got a lot of potential and I'm enjoying reading it. I could see them liking each other, they'd remind each other of their respective brothers. I feel like the ship looks very different depending on when they get together and when you think NHS became a manipulative bastard. If they get together as teenagers, and if you assume that NHS was kind of manipulative but not full-blown chessplayer back then, it's actually kind of sweet. Here's one I like:
Yumeng spice by a_stands_for. Mostly a PWP, but optimistic.
If they get together later, or if you assume that NHS was a chessplayer from the beginning, what it comes up against for me is my very strong feeling that do not want to see JC manipulated and lied to for his own good ever again, and a lot of NHS/JC fics write their dynamic that way, with NHS chessmastering them to a happy ending. I also don't think JC is any dumber than NHS, he rebuilt his sect from nothing in months in the middle of a war. I think what I'd like to see in this ship is something like the NHS/NMJ relationship in Fatal Journey, where they respect each other's very different kinds of intelligence and see things in each other that other people don't see. I haven't seen exactly that, but here's a NHS/JC that I like anyway:
our footsteps sing a restless serenade by ThirtySixSaveFiles, modern AU with magic, everybody lives, arranged marriage. NHS and JC work together to repair the imbalance in the city caused after the destruction of the Wens.
JC/WWX: I continue to be very invested in this ship, but no new recs. As I continue in canon a part of me feels like this relationship just has too much baggage to be fixed and the best thing is for them to go away from each other. But I am also compelled by fixit fics in which the fixit is actually very simple, not much more than WWX (with or without LWJ) showing up at Lotus Pier and saying hi, I'm back, going to stay now, is that ok? And of course JC says yes, and they go back to alternating punching and hugging like they used to.
JC/WQ: The ship is so interesting in potential but I thought canon made a terrible mess of it, at least after the golden core transfer. Here's a fic I like that manages to spackle canon a bit by having Jiang Cheng save Wen Qing but not tell anyone or go to her because he doesn't feel like he deserves any credit or happiness for it:
display my heart for you to see by Sour_Idealist.
JC/LJY: I love this ship beyond all reason and I think I've read everything in the tag. I don't know if I can even explain the appeal, beyond a chance for JC to be happy in a non-fraught way. I also really like the idea of a Lan coming to live with the Jiangs. I think the nature of the reconstituted Jiang clan is vastly underexplored in canon (at least in dramaverse) and it fascinates me. In particular: that all or most of the Jiangs (possibly a few survived?) are new recruits, recruited and trained by Jiang Cheng or someone personally trained by him. The Jiang clan, unlike the Lans, don't have written rules, it's all oral traditions, which are broken when a generation is killed. So Jiang Cheng had to not just recruit all these new disciples but more or less reformulate Jiang traditions for them. I find this super-fascinating, and I think Lan Jingyi coming to live among the Jiangs is an excellent POV character for thinking about what this looks like. If I end up writing a fic for this canon, that is probably what it will be.
(And since I'm doing Jiang Cheng apologism here, I am starting to suspect that he didn't actually kill any demonic cultivators. I mean I'm sure he captured them and yelled at them and probably smacked them with zidian. But I am starting to suspect that he recruited them. It seems that the people drawn to demonic cultivation were people who wanted to be cultivators but didn't have the ability or training, and that's exactly the sort of person that Jiang Cheng needs for his rebuilt sect. Someone who takes the initiative to become a cultivator by any means necessary would probably make a good Jiang. If offered a way to join a proper sect, they might even agree to tell horrifying-sounding stories about what Jiang Cheng does to demonic cultivators in exchange.)
Ok that was a big digression, back to shipping.
LSZ/JL: I like this ship a lot. I'm starting to become convinced that Jin Ling is in some ways the stealth protagonist, and that the story is about him learning the history of what happened because he's going to be the one to carry all the legacies of his many uncles and take the cultivation world forward. Meanwhile LSZ embodies some of this complicated history. No recs right now, but I'm still reading.
NHS/NMJ: I'm very interested in theory but I have yet to find the right fic.
JYL/WQ: I am really not sure why this is a thing other than that they are the only two women of their generation in canon, but I am willing to be convinced by the right fic.
LY/BSR: I am so grateful to The Untamed for making this canon, what a wonderful ship, I just wish we'd seen more of it. Baoshan Sanren and Lan Yi are both very interesting people. I like how their relationship mirrors the WWX/LWJ relationship two generations earlier and I think there's a lot of room for exploring it. No fic recs yet but I'm looking.
I also *really* like how Wei Wuxian, Lan Wanji and Jiang Cheng each have a significant woman teacher figure from whom they inherit some of their powers. For a canon that is so terrible on women in general, it is really very very good about having the male characters take women teachers seriously.
Some good fics for rare ships:
Four Worlds by nirejseki. Four Jiang Yanli/Jin Guangyao AUs, because why not. The author has some other excellent rare pairing fics.
utility by magicities, Jiang Yanli/Nie Mingjue in a political marriage while they are each involved romantically with other people.
Peony-Shaped Clouds by Starra. Jin Ling/Lan Qiren, yes really. Only one chapter up so far but I can't wait to see how it goes.