Character Base

• Character Name: Nie Huaisang
• Age: 23-24ish
• Canon (Date/Year Released)/Canon Point: Mo Dao Zu Shi, or: Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, specifically the novel, originally published in 2016/Canon point: about 11-12 years before present day in canon, during the extensive flashback
• Items Coming Along: A very fancy paper fan, another very fancy paper fan, a saber, several fancy outfits to fill in the rest.
• Content Warnings for Character: murder, war, general violence, verbal abuse

Character Background

• History: here
• Core Relationships:

Nie Mingjue: Mingjue is (was) Huaisang's only surviving family growing up; their father died when Huaisang was a child, and while it's never specified what happened to his mother, she's also never mentioned except for in footnotes. So: big brother Mingjue, who is only a few years' Huaisang's senior, raises his brother with a focus on his education and safety. Huaisang loves his brother very much, despite the way their ideals come to chafe the older Huaisang gets; Mingjue is dedicated to the military and aggressive cultivation/saber work above all else, whereas Huaisang would like to collect art, read poetry, feed birds - the opposite of his big brother, essentially. To Huaisang, it makes perfect sense that he not stress himself out trying to become a good cultivator and fierce warrior, because he doesn't want that life, so why not ask someone else who actually wants those responsibilities? But Mingjue disagrees, both for Secret Reasons (he will die young, for #weirdcultivation reasons) and because it's embarrassing for the whole clan for Huaisang to be a dandy layabout. Still: there's a deep love between the two of them, forged in their childhood as the only people left of their immediate family. Mingjue has protected Huaisang for his whole life, and when Mingjue suddenly dies, Huaisang's life is changed for the worse in just about every possible way. His attachment to his brother (before his death) is expressed, oddly enough, in the way he talks back to Mingjue and continues to do whatever he wants with his time despite his brother's wishes, knowing his brother will yell and threaten but never actually do anything about it because he loves him; it's actually when Mingjue finally does make good on a threat and burns Huaisang's fancy art and trinkets in a fit of angry disapproval that Huaisang becomes aware that there's something not right about his brother's behavior overall. After Mingjue's sudden passing, Huaisang's attachment manifests as obsessive, world-ending grief, which is something he's not yet dealt with in a completely healthy way. More on this below!!

Lan Xichen & Jin Guangyao: Mingjue's sworn brothers, and so in a sense, Huaisang's other big brothers. Huaisang has known Xichen for most of his life and respects him by default almost all of the time, and Guangyao spoils him rotten with fancy gifts and indulgence of his hobbies. They both spoil him rotten when it comes to indulging his hobbies, but Xichen is much more serious about how the arts are valuable skills for someone of his station, etc, etc, whereas Guangyao buys him a metric ton of presents. It's nuanced. Huaisang depends on them both emotionally and - professionally, call it, when Mingjue dies and Huaisang is immediately promoted to Sect Leader, a job he never wanted to have and continues to refuse to adequately prepare for. They are fundamentally the two people keeping him together in the immediate aftermath of Mingjue's death, and he will always, always love them down to his core for how far they'll go for him -- however. The fact that one of them killed Mingjue and the other one smiles pleasantly about the first without any critical thinking kind of rankles him, lately. Huaisang's feelings about his surviving "brothers" are, therefore, incredibly complicated and messy. He loves them! How could they do this to him! They will take care of him no matter what, just like Mingjue! Mingjue is dead thanks to Jin Guangyao, and Lan Xichen is too starry-eyed over him to notice! It's absolutely not smooth sailing for Huaisang, and he's resolved to pretend he knows nothing at all; he can't lose either of them just yet.

Wei Wuxian: A friend from youth who, in Huaisang's opinion, got a raw deal. Huaisang never totally agreed with the treatment (leading to the death of) Wei Wuxian got from the rest of the cultivation world, and actually thought demonic cultivation sounded pretty smart? Go figure. They haven't remained particularly close after the war that ended their school days, but Wei Wuxian is someone whose abilities Huaisang trusts, and someone he considers just a fun guy to be around. He does think Wei Wuxian is permanently dead forever at this canon point, though.

Everyone else: Huaisang isn't close to many people who aren't, like, his late brother's friends, particularly after the aforementioned war kills so many young cultivators of his generation. Most people in the cultivation world consider him a good-for-nothing, the Headshaker (that is, he'll never make a decision or answer a question except with "I don't know!"), and he's not really taken seriously. There are Reasons for this and some of it is an act (see: negative experiences), but that's the reputation he has. Most of his school friends are dead or doing something obsessive and vengeful of their own, so Huaisang spends most of his time alone when he isn't public-facing or going to the big bros for help. He's not, like, against socializing - he was absolutely the class gossip, back at cultivation school - but times are tough, and he's having a rough one.

Character Personality Through Key Moments

(2+) Positive Experiences:

Fun times at Lan High School: In short: Huaisang has fun at cultivation school. He purposefully doesn't learn much, because he's not there to become a great warrior, he's there because his brother cares about his education (and Huaisang has mastered the art of doing Just Enough to not get kicked out, and so failed twice) and isn't willing to make the trip to check up on him personally. The school days (tm) highlight the lightest and airiest parts of Huaisang's personality: he's a bit of a gossip but only for fun, he likes to hang out with the rowdy kid because his mischief is funny, he smuggles in rare pornography to tantalize and scandalize his classmates in equal measure - he has fun. It's fun, at school. Huaisang is demonstrably carefree and more than willing to coast along, begging for help when he's in danger of his brother hearing about his poor performance and otherwise not super worried about what he's doing there other than having a great time hanging with the boys. He's ready and willing to be a follower, tagging along at Wei Wuxian's heels (or Jiang Cheng's, when Wei Wuxian is otherwise occupied) and totally accepting his place in the social order as, like... the quirky friend. He's got porn to dispense and he's never done a single page of homework in three years; he's that friend.

So yeah, it's nice. It's idyllic, even, and serves to show that in such circumstances, where safety and survival are not so immediate concerns, Huaisang is incredibly laid back and easygoing. His anxieties mostly revolve around getting caught being too easygoing and having to work; he just wants to hang around and watch his much more outgoing and raucous friends get into trouble, if they'll let him tag along.

Being a lazy second son: Similar to the above, Huaisang has never planned to make much of himself in his life, in terms of being a legendary leader or an especially impressive heir to the Nie clan. This is, simply put, because he's a second son, and without the expectations heaped upon the eldest son, second sons were free to enjoy more "frivolous" pursuits, like art and poetry and birds. Huaisang is totally okay with this situation; he doesn't have the innate ambition that firstborns or even many other second sons in his position might have - he's fine with it! This is great! He gets to fritter away his time on pretty gifts and expensive clothes, and his main contributions to the clan can be social ones, like occasionally hosting a banquet because his brother's temperament is not ideal for it, where Huaisang's much calmer one is. He's very, very satisfied with his lot in life (before his brother dies), and actively resists any changes that might threaten it or take it away entirely. He is just Not Interested.

So, he's lazy, in a word. He'd like to work smarter, not harder, and he's arranged his comings and goings around the idea of doing as much as he can in as little as possible. When he's eventually forced to become a leader, he can demonstrate moments of keen intelligence, if he feels like it; if something is beneath his interest, he will simply start weeping annoyingly on his remaining big brothers until they fix things for him. Huaisang is happiest when left to his own devices, and now that he's very much an important public figure and sect leader, well. It sucks now.

(2+) Negative Experiences:

That time Nie Mingjue got mcmurdered: As previously stated: Huaisang has not dealt with the loss of his brother well, or really at all. To lose the only family he has left and be immediately told to suck it up and take over his leadership duties now is, in a word, stressful! And Huaisang doesn't enjoy stress. While he hasn't been sect leader long at this canon point, he's quickly developed a reputation of just - not being very good at his job, and spending a lot of time crying on Xichen and Guangyao about things that seem much easier to solve than he thinks. Some of this is entirely genuine: Huaisang did not want this job, and in fact threw a tantrum about being forced to prepare himself for it not long before Mingjue died. He's bitter that the world hasn't stopped to account for his grief, because he really feels like it should have given him more time to process and to prepare for what's come next. He's unhappy! He's grieving! The person who protected him for his whole life despite their disagreement is gone now, and he is alone. It's been a year and change since Mingjue has died, and Huaisang is still in the very uncomfortable and messy process of putting his life back together, while also keening under the pressure of his new job. Ironically, as far as keeping a sect running mostly smoothly, he's not bad at it? But it's an affront to everything he wanted out of life to make him do it, and so he avoids investing himself in a way anyone will take seriously as much as possible.

The Nie Cultivation Problem: The former feeds into this, which in turn cyclically feeds back into that, too: the Nie clan does cultivation magic wrong. They dump a whole lot of resentful spiritual energy into their sabers to get, basically, a huge power stat boost - hence why historically, Nie leaders have all been insanely good warriors. This much Bad Mojo builds up quickly and leads to a qi deviation, which most of the time kills the sufferer - hence why so many Nie leaders die young. Huaisang didn't learn about this until Mingjue had already died, and it's not great! He's looked down as a leader because his cultivation is poor, but if he improves it, it will kill him! There's no winning here, and so it becomes another thing that Huaisang kind of resents and mostly pushes to the side and pretends to be incompetent about; yeah, he never wanted to work on his cultivation anyway? But the weight of this new secret about how poorly his clan has been developing themselves for generations is a lot to carry.

It comes with another problem: the Nie ancestral burial ground is a "man-eating pit" full of angry spiritual weapons, that have to be artificially kept calm by surrounding them with corpses. Of just, you know, whoever. Huaisang finds this pretty repulsive, morally; he doesn't agree with the practice of collecting corpses to line the walls in the creepy sword pit, even if "they were evil people in life," or any other excuse. In fact, he's pretty firmly on the side of "why do we get to decide who deserves this fate?"— and so having to bear the truth of his family's ancient and morally bankrupt burial practice also weighs on him. He does not, however, seek to change this: Huaisang doesn't like to make waves, because it would be hard and people would raise their expectations of him, so it's a sort of wheel-spinning, empty indignation that he's saddled himself with. He has a strong moral code about the corpse pit! But changing it would be difficult, and wouldn't that also shame and disappoint every one of his ancestors, retroactively? So he'd better not.

Schemin': So, Huaisang figures out that Jin Guangyao betrayed and murdered Mingjue, and he's kind of upset about it. At his canon point he's only recently discovered this and so has only recently begun to wonder about his options, but significantly: he wonders about his options, which is telling of the kind of dedication to vengeance he's capable of in itself. Unlike an... "ordinary" revenge killing, eye for an eye, blood for blood, etc - Huaisang takes it very personally. This man who swore an oath to his brother, who has cared for him personally so warmly for so long, would do this to Mingjue? To him? It's a credit to Huaisang's capacity for sitting and waiting that he doesn't immediately have Guangayo assassinated as soon as he finds out, because boy, can he sit and wait. He will inevitably wait over a decade to put all his pieces together and enact his Scheme, and because it's personal, he would like for it to hurt. He would like for Guangyao to be taken apart sliver by sliver, if possible, no matter how much Huaisang still cares for him based on the friendship they shared (still share? sometimes). Huaisang's willingness to take the long way around for something this dark strikes to the core of him, which is that he isn't really a know-nothing headshaker like he appears in public. He's shrewd and intelligent, but only when he wants to be, and he has the capacity to detach himself emotionally not only to hide (e.g. acting pathetic and helpless, leaning on Xichen and Guangyao for help all the time) but also to do the kinds of things he will eventually do (use children as murder bait, for example, among other things).

However, at his canon point, he stands at a precipice of sorts: he hasn't committed to the bit, as it were, of this revenge; oh, he's furious, he wants retribution, he wants to know why the hell - but he's still so close to Mingjue's death and his own unresolved grief about it, and his messy tangle of feelings about Guangyao, that he's a ball of potentially murderous grief, at the moment. The base is already there: he was already smart enough to figure out the secret murder, after all - but at this point his future isn't set in stone.

Deer Country Attributes

• Canon Powers: Huaisang is a cultivator of the wuxia genre, which means he should be able to utilize spiritual energy channeled through his golden core to do a lot of cool things like fly on a sword, fight real good, maybe even do real magic - but he's not good at it, so he can't do any of that. His cultivation is permanently poor because he took almost a full decade longer than is typical to form his golden core, so he basically has the most basic core advantages: speedier than normal healing and a longer than usual natural lifespan. That's it. Non-supernaturally, he's an extremely talented artist and a supreme actor.
• Blood Type: Paleblood
• Omen: a strawberry finch
• Blessed Day: May 20, his birthday
• Patron Pthumerian: Bausphomette, whom he has no particularly strong feelings about besides vaguely wishing they were more fashionable.
• Blood Power Manifestation: Huaisang's cultivation ability in his canon not-really-powerset is poor, so his command over Paleblood abilities will also never be spectacular. However, the Paleblood's connection to the moon and its relationship with blood ministration will, for Huaisang, have the impact of mitigating the innate Wrongness of what little cultivation he has (see: Nie Problem). Therefore, since it will be helpful, he will (eventually) actually try to master it to offset his fickle golden core. This will mostly manifest as a track towards mastery (again, at an end point that is kind of low level, following his canon ability level), wherein the act of mastery itself is the point. He'll probably focus the most on dream-based abilities and hallucinations, for pure curiosity and artistic creativity reasons, respectively. He'll never be a powerhouse, but actually trying for once will be a fun change.

Writing Samples

One: there's like 5 threads here

The Player

• Player Name: Laura
• Player Age: over 30
• Player Contact:

jojoveller
• Permissions: Here.

Other Characters

Link to Character 1 overall AC: https://doeit.dreamwidth.org/1530.html?thread=985850#cmt985850

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