Jin Guangyao Meta Bits

Not that this would make getting a dozen sex workers killed okay, but I was wondering whether the women Jin Guangyao had offed after making them accomplices to his father’s murder (barring Sisi, who’s spared because in book canon she’s an old family friend) might be people Guangyao actually knew from his brothel years. I assumed he chose aged and less-attractive women because they’d be ‘least missed’ by patrons wondering where their favourite had gotten to, or by Madams looking for their high-earners, as well as to embarrass his father. But these women could be old enough that Guangyao might simultaneously be taking vengeance against his father and his ancient enemy, Wage-Garnish Wanda.

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I don't think it was Guangyao's plan, exactly, but I do think that ruining Lan Wangji’s life and pushing him into seclusion introduces fragility to the Lan brothers' previously-tight relationship. It creates room for Guangyao to manoeuvre. Lan Wangji is absent during his time in seclusion, so Xichen can’t rely on him as he's used to doing. Afterwards, Wangji is somewhat lastingly bitter about what Lan (and indirectly, Xichen) have cost him, disenchanted and prone to taking on field work. Guangyao, however, is ready to accept Xichen’s personal token and come help him plan everything: to be his confidant, to believe (or seem to believe) that Xichen is right without question. Guangyao is affectionate with Xichen as an equal, in a way no one else left is or can be. Guangyao even arranges matters so that he’s fictively addressed as ‘younger brother’, employing the informal terms that the Lans themselves (who’ve been, since childhood, engaged in offering one another respect to build up their credibility in an unstable clan) don’t use for one another. excaliburedpan points out that Guangyao may well have trial-run a similar triangulation in Nie. 

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remembering Her (Mo Xuanyu's kidneys)

I can't believe the Xiyao troll hasn't yet observed that Guangyao is literally toxic, because of his cinnabar huadian. “Following long-term use of cinnabar, renal dysfunction may occur." ‘GEE THIS FIC IS GREAT, IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT XICHEN'S URINARY TRACT!!!’

Guangyao’s coming for your Kidneys. He’s gonna get your renals!! 

uminohikari suggests that Jin Guangshan ‘had so many children to increase his chances of donor compatibility, and that he’s keeping an eye out for one who has yet to be damaged by the Jin dot.’

Mo Xuanyu, or as the Jins call him, “Two Tasty Fresh Kidneys"

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DISCLAIMER: fandom sometimes acts like Nie Mingjue is particularly dumb or uncouth (I once saw a modern AU where he just ate steak with his hands, for some reason??). There is not much textual evidence of that (beyond Mingjue's anxiousness for Huaisang stop fucking about and do his job as an heir—and given that Mingjue dies young, like their father before him, he was right to be wary!), and in fact it’s annoying. This is just a joke I made early on, before I was quite so weirded out by the prevalence of this assumption.

aralias: I bet they have some books on asexuality in the Lan library—

Me: Do they? Lans have fucked since day one. Lan An left his monastic order: to fuck. Maybe the Nie library??

aralias: Nie doesn’t have a library, they just have books Huaisang hides from his brother. Maybe when Meng Yao lived there.

Me: Like Belle borrowing that one book again and again from the shop, and a goat keeps trying to eat it—

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On Nie Mingjue:

excaliburedpan: I know I shouldn't joke on his beHalf, but—

Me: I mean you can’t spell ‘dismember’ without ‘member’, so this situation was already sexualised.

excaliburedpan: His relationship with Meng Yao is, canonically, all about head.

Me: And Meng Yao’s character is entirely about getting a head, so there we go!