Things That Made Me Fall In Love With Jin Guangyao:

AU where Meng Shi was just a bit more cynical and spent her hard-earned on buying Meng Yao study materials for the Imperial Examination instead of dodgy cultivation manuals. Cultivation is for his father to teach him, after all.

Meng Yao fucking blitzes the exam, because of course he does, and the first time he arrives at Koi Tower it's with an imperial mandate to audit the shit out of them for tax purposes.

Upstaged again

One of my favorites from last year 💜

Wei Wuxian: -anyways, and now we turn to this area, which is nothing suspicious-

Jin Zixuan: *was convinced to bring Yanli to check out the Burial Mounds by the most annoying set of Yunmeng siblings to ever exist* Why does that hut have a sign that says ‘Corpse Storage’?

Wei Wuxian: :) that’s Wen Ning’s hut :)

Jiang Yanli: Aww, that’s cute.

Jiang Cheng: lmaoooo

Jin Zixuan: *is wondering how Yanli hid her gremlin side from the world so much, these siblings are so annoying he’s gonna throw rocks at them* That… nice…

The Yiling Patriarch

Xianle Quartet is a top tier polyship not only because of the metric ton of emotional baggage (and the sheer volume of sexual tension and awakening possible between 3 virgins and an effectively celibate fertility god), but also simply because they're all from a country renowned for beauty and pretentiousness, therefore treating impossible beauty standards as the norm.

Xie Lian's canon internal thoughts consist of not infrequently calling people ugly. Can we blame him? He was raised constantly surrounded by and continues to surround himself with devastatingly attractive people. Feng Xin, canonically olive-skinned and handsome, archer's figure. Mu Qing, canonically delicate-appearing and pretty. Hua Cheng, growing up to be tall and savagely beautiful.

Meanwhile, Hua Cheng is a literal fashionista, decked out in every possible silver accessory at any given moment, jingling like a Christmas elf and fabulous while doing it. He throws money around on luxury items just because he can, and his taste is impeccable. Mu Qing straight up destroys his own statues if they're ugly, literally described as wearing luxurious robes that he probably made himself because no one could do it better. They're the divas of this operation. They're judging you, hard, and they want you to know it, so you will.

Xie Lian is the equivalent of the naturally beautiful friend who doesn't wash their face with anything but a bar of soap and comes out looking flawless. He needs absolutely zero fashion sense because he could wear a trash bag and people would think it looks high fashion. Feng Xin is the himbo friend who washes with 10-in-1, yet his skin glistens in the sun like an oiled up ancient greek olympian. He does a normal amount of working out and comes out shaped like Captain America. They're simply God's Favorite, so they don't need to try.

Basically, I picture them as the blindingly hot polycule walking around like the Cullens entering their high-school cafeteria. Hair blowing in an invisible wind. Throwing incredible amounts of shade in the communication array.

They're hot. They're judgmental. They're literally the Mean Girls.

Based on this post that has been stuck in my head for ages- the three straightest guys lmao

And also their husbands having a similar conversation

Guys I'm so normal about all of these books don't @ me lol

I am genuinely obsessed with how jiang cheng goes from “youngest sect leader in an age with a weak, newly rebuilt sect who can’t risk upsetting the jin sect” to “if you’re going to offend someone, make sure you don’t offend the jiang sect or sandu shengshou”

We as a fandom need to talk more about how Wei Wuxian changed the Burial Mounds. In the beginning of the story, we are explicitly told this is a place that will kill you dead and leave nothing behind.

"Look at the dark air. Tsk tsk tsk, the hostile energy is strong, isn’t it? And the resentful energy is thick, isn’t it? Even us at the Wen Sect weren’t able to do anything about it. We could only surround it and prevent people from going in. This is still daytime. At night, really any—-thing can be found in there. When a living person goes in here, both the body and the soul, they cannot return, unable to get out for all of eternity." - Wen Chao, Poisons, Chapter 60

But then of course, Wei Wuxian survives it. And then he returns, to this hell of a place that left him broken and bleeding, because he has no other choice, because the cultivation world is determined to kill innocents and they have no where else to go.

And within the three years that followed, he does what even the Wen Sect in their prime wasn't able to, and tames THE FUCKING BURIAL MOUNDS. The Wen Remnants start farming there, for crying out loud.

(I do think some of the taming started during when Wei Wuxian was first there, because they were able to enter the place without too much trouble.)

By the time the siege happens, people could walk in and out of the place, and it no longer carries with it the horror it once did.

Even after the siege, with Wei Wuxian dead, the clans are able to remain there, loot the place, and set up prevention measures against Wei Wuxian potentially coming back.

The various clans set one hundred and twenty stone beasts on top of LuanZang Hill and initiated frequent soul-summoning rituals, followed by heightened vigilance and searches for strange occurrences from all over the world. - Prologue, Chapter 1

And then, during the second siege, we again see the clans easily enter the place and throw around their ridiculous allegations.

MXTX shows that Wei Wuxian is a genius in many ways, of course, but this is one that makes me love him so much - with sheer ingenuity and willpower, he made a home out of a hellscape.