#birdcvged

headcanon meme || not accepting || @birdcvged

jiang cheng respected and admired nie mingjue, but even so, he started to understand nie huaisang a lot better once he understood the pressures huaisang felt from his older brother and other members of his sect. he didn’t really vocalize it (lmao when does he vocalize anything), but there was a period of time when he felt some unspoken kinship for someone else whose temperament and skills weren’t living up to the expectation of their sect leader and guardian figure and weren’t seen as representative of what their sect should be.

━━  ❀ Automatically WEARY at presence of a human around these parts as she retracts into the bush (though nine red tails still peek out behind her, curving curiously in the air) - “I’m not - I wasn’t going to STEAL any chickens - ” The girl protests past pink lips furled into pout, ready to scurry away at a moment’s notice. 

breaking down. || accepting. || @birdcvged

     “do you ever?” the words are spoken in an undertone, accompanied by a roll of jiang cheng’s eyes. still, the exasperation is more reflex than anything, a perfunctory response to cover what is, if jiang cheng’s being honest, an unpleasant twist of sympathy. he’d been horrified to hear what had happened to nie mingjue, when word had reached lotus pier. he’d always seen nie mingjue as — as a pillar of strength, he supposes, someone who always stood firm even when everything around them was faltering. once, nie mingjue had looked at jiang cheng and said that he lived up to his reputation as a teenage hero, and jiang cheng had glowed with pride. 

     he’d seen his own parents the same way, though. strong, steady, immortal to a child’s eyes. it hadn’t made a difference then, either.

     there’s a moment of silence. jiang cheng’s not — he’s never been good at this shit. other people’s emotions, their vulnerability, just make him feel awkward and inadequate next to them. but nie huaisang...jiang cheng knows only too well that he never wanted this. that he was never, if they’re being honest, cut out for it. he wanted to chase after birds and paint fans, not lead a sect. of course he’s overwhelmed. jiang cheng knows how that feels.

Body gone, soul hidden, he knows himself, yet doesn’t, sleeping yet aware of time passing, or at least, of the knowledge time is passing. How long? He doesn’t know. All he knows is the deep grief, mourning lost sisters, lost brothers, lost found family. All he knows is that no one remains that remembers him as something else than the demon on every lips to accuse of every faults.

No one... truly? He hears it, the Inquiry, if not the words transmitted by the tune. But he is afraid of what he will find, if he listens, if he replies, his fragile soul cannot take the pain of being rejected by this one person. And maybe... maybe if he doesn’t reply, he will continue to hear this call, this little anchor into the mortal world. A reminder someone still thinks of him.

Somewhere else... he feels the call of grief, of loosing a beloved sibling, but it isn’t quite what attracted his attention. No, it’s the familiarity of this soul, and the knowledge this one should not have been so sad. Always fun, always a friend, even when they couldn’t communicate as much anymore, someone who is meant for the life of arts and tranquility, not grief and bitterness.

He feels the soft question, does he truly wish to leave the protection they offer? He pauses, he listens to Inquiry, he listens to the tears of grief, and he says yes, he reaches out to play the notes I’m safe, Lan Zhan, and then the Burial Mounds release his soul from its healing cocoon, but not from themselves, giving from its massive amount of energy to let their beloved master take form.

And a ghost moves, from shadows to shadows, until he finds the source of the grief, letting his form become visible when he senses no other presence that will witness his appearance.

“Huaisang...” Wei Wuxian’s voice echoes slightly, tone soft. “Don’t keep all this grief and pain in your heart, old friend. Won’t you share your burden?”

Now that he is here, he can hear another grief, conflicted with hate, and his eyes flicker briefly, in the direction of Yunmeng, of Lotus Pier. But his presence... he knows it won’t be welcomed, knows it is too risky.

Gusu... he knows Lan Zhan is trying to reach him, but they replied for him, told him to be patient. Lan Zhan isn’t without wounds in his heart, he can now tell, but the simple replies he has gotten have soothed him.

Recordings of Me Reading Bits of my Fav Threads | status: open

Give me a character and I’ll break their ass down

How I feel about this character

I feel like he’s mean and should have just let A-Yao get away with any murder and dismemberment because?? Idk dimples. Okay, but really, I didn’t pay much attention to NHS during most of the show, until suspicious things started happening and even then by the end of it all I had to go back and piece stuff together (like he had to do with his brother’s body, HA) because I was shocked with the reveal. You do know that it was your version and love for him that gave me more feels, it didn’t take long for me to see the beauty of his tragedy as well.

But still wrong, because I don’t keep this blog to be fair but rather to give A-Yao anything he wants.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

The first one that popped up in my mind when I was new to the fandom was definitely Jiang Cheng, in the context we tend to discuss of them having had either a teenage fling or an on-and-off thing. Wen Ning showed up as a nice option to soothe the soul because yes, cotton candy fluff ship. And then there’s Meng Yao, which once again wasn’t something I stopped to consider at all while watching but I live for the drama potential.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

I feel like I’m putting siblings here all the time but it’s only because this story has solid family interactions and we just want the Nie bros to be happy, damn it. This isn’t even up for discussion, I would say, as we know how important Nie Mingjue is to his little brother and in turn how much he tried to protect him and make sure he would have the right tools to survive in the cultivation world – even if they had very different ways of doing that and often clashed about it. Sad, really.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I? Don’t know? How fitting LMAO I don’t think I know what the popular opinions are in this case, but I like the idea that he actually only had a half-formed idea of how his revenge plan would unfold and just unleashed WWX back into the world along with every single evidence he’d found against JGY while counting that something would stick. Still a genius move, tbh.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

send 🧡 to hold my muse and run your fingers through their hair

He would have preferred not to show the raw emotions that still shook his entire being in the aftermath of that unforeseen turn of events, especially with the accusations of manipulating a situation that had once been all too real for him. He didn’t have to pretend being helpless in a world that refused to accept him out of sheer prejudice, but now every step taken in the righteous path was seen as a fabrication. As if they’d all had the same opportunities, as if he had been provided with any skills besides lowering his head and smiling prettily to hide the sharp edge of a rage they didn’t want to confront.

It was one thing to seem vulnerable and another – less ideal – to be so, yet once again his only hope rested with a savior, albeit a surprising one. Meng Yao had his concerns about trusting it wholeheartedly, aware of the traps and pitfalls when something looked too good to be true. It remained to be seen how much Nie Huaisang understood of his situation, how much of the boy’s behavior was also curated through a sharp mind to thrive in a place that expected specific traits from their sons.

Were they more alike than previously anticipated?

With his head perched on the young master’s shoulder, allowing a hand to card neatly through dark hair that cascaded down from the signature style and headpiece of their family, Meng Yao looked up. From beneath long eyelashes, he studied A-Sang's expression with increasing curiosity. There was a lot to discuss, a lot of questions to be answered and decisions to be made to ensure that he wouldn’t be tossed aside once he was no longer convenient, but for the time being...