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Application for TLV
May. 30th, 2023 06:54 pm User Name/Nick: Gels
Throughout it all, he plays innocent and helpless.
When asked directly, Huaisang never admitted outright to Lan Xichen that he had lied about Guangyao trying to attack him. He let him shoulder the blame entirely, and walked his happy ass away with his enemy dead, his former ally emotionally destroyed, the cultivation world completely upended, and his brother's corpse stitched back together and sealed in a coffin with Guangyao. Revenge complete, Huaisang went back to lead the Nie Clan with zero consequences!!! yay!!!
As an inmate on the Barge he'll be pretty likely to be laid back and fun-loving, even helpful and rule-abiding (so long as you don't make him do stuff, please don't make him do stuff). He'll be one of those innocuous-looking inmates until you find out what he's done, and when confronted he'll have zero remorse about it. The only time he'll be actively dangerous is 1. if Guangyao happens to be on the Barge, or 2. someone he bonds with like he'd bonded with his brother is harmed. In that case he'll move from just being 'a guy who did really bad things and doesn't lose sleep about it' to 'an active threat'. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty, so it'll all be some intense and probably over-the-top scheming, because that's what he's best at.
Huaisang will likely try to hide himself as he's always done by pretending to be an absolute useless fool. He doesn't know anything! What are you talking about, he just likes birds and art! Look at his neat fan! He could have more fans, you know. It's been a coping skill that's been tried and true for Huaisang, and something he has absolutely no shame in continuing once he's on the Barge. Anything to fly under the radar so he can continue doing whatever the hell he wants.
His ideal warden will be someone like his older brother, who he moved heaven and earth to avenge. Mingjue was very black-and-white with his morality, strong and disciplined, but also the kind of guy who would cry at basically any strong emotion. Huaisang never saw eye-to-eye with his brother about...most of the things, but was completely devoted to him. If a warden with even a passing familiarity to Mingjue (that is, big and tough but secretly sensitive and caring) can gain Huaisang's trust, they'd have a leg up over most.
Barring that, Huaisang really would get along with most wardens, so long as they don't either write him off entirely as just a spoiled brat, or try to play mind games with him. Someone that can acknowledge Huaisang's crafty mind but also his pain (and share a laugh with him) would have a better time than most to getting him to acknowledge that maaaaaybe his revenge plot was a little much. He's a people person, affable, even charming -- he enjoys a good personality, someone who can have a little fun, and he truly appreciates people who stick to the moral highroad even when it's difficult.
Huaisang’s redemption is going to have to focus heavily on the revenge plot, and how it never made him happy or even all that satisfied. He'll probably readily admit that it wasn't so much the satisfaction of the thing as just having an ending to the whole sordid saga, but unraveling the sheer effort it took to plan and enact such a thing will help Huaisang actually see how nuts it was. He'll need to face the fact that he hurt a lot of innocent people, which might take some doing because he was so focused on that vengeance thing he didn't care at the time, and let go of his hate for Jin Guangyao.
Huaisang should also be encouraged to drop the 'headshaker' persona altogether and examine why he needed it in the first place. Post-canon it's clear that he does exactly this, and actually moves on to being a reliable and even powerful person in the cultivation world. Pointing out that he's actually a pretty successful person who should be fairly proud of what he's accomplished would be a good way to start -- you know, while getting him to admit that he was suckering all the people around him to do his dirty work and handle his affairs for over a decade, all the while not offering any help back to them even though he was secretly capable.
So in closing: adoring your older brother = good! elaborate revenge plot = bad. pretending to be someone you're not = not great! using people for years so you can continue your elaborate revenge plot = my guy. my guy that's so wrong. collecting pretty fans = good!
[Huaisang turns on his communicator and places it oh-so-carefully on a stand, the wide sleeve of his robe blocking the shot as he fumbles to get just the right angle. It's important. He's clearly taking his time with this. In the frame, when he finally pulls back, he's positioned a blank scroll of xuan paper, two bamboo brushes, an inkstone, and an inkwell with water.] Some people have asked what I do with my time all day. [Probably a few wardens have asked. Maybe some fellow inmates. He's not naming names. He doesn't even sound all that annoyed.] I thought to myself, why bother explaining it, I'll just show you!
[He sits down to paint. First the long, gnarled trunk of a weeping willow, then its winding and knotted vines. He adds in a bird, his strokes fluid, occasionally pausing to twist the end of the paintbrush in his mouth. He's actually quite good, and there's the oddest look of something like concentration in his eye. It's an unfamiliar sight to anyone who's had a conversation with him.]
There! You see?
[He sits back, looking pleased with himself.]
Of course, I also like to look at art and read, and talk about art and reading. I also enjoy collecting fans, but it isn't as though I can amass any sort of worthwhile collection here. [There's the famous Nie Huaisang pout!] You make it very difficult for a gentleman of leisure to do anything of importance here.
[Huaisang picks up his fan and flicks it open, reaching for the communicator to shut it off. But before he does --] That was an invitation, by the way, if anyone would like to discuss art and literature with me. Save me from my boredom! [Yes, Huaisang, you were not subtle about it.
Click.]
User DW: gelise
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: gelise @ plurk
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Francis Crozier, Trixie, Petronilla de Vilers
Character Name: Nie Huaisang
Series: The Untamed
Age: Mid-30s
From When?: Since Huaisang doesn't die in canon, we're going to headcanon a death where he'd finally decided to try to change the Nie method of cultivation from the deadly, deadly saber spirit method, only to get murdered by some angry sword-ghosts.
Inmate Justification: lol he's a buttface
Huaisang spends years and years crafting an elaborate revenge plot to destroy the man who killed his older brother, and basically takes down most of the important players of the cultivation world right along with them. The complex plot included child endangerment, the killing of animals, manipulating the mentally ill, blackmail, and just outright using people for murder.
Huaisang spends years and years crafting an elaborate revenge plot to destroy the man who killed his older brother, and basically takes down most of the important players of the cultivation world right along with them. The complex plot included child endangerment, the killing of animals, manipulating the mentally ill, blackmail, and just outright using people for murder.
Throughout it all, he plays innocent and helpless.
Arrival: Huiasang would have readily agreed to the second chance, especially when realizing that maybe the Admiral's able to reverse a few wrongs.
Abilities/Powers:
Huaisang's magic Wuxia powers are fairly weak compared to his peers. His clan cultivates through using haunted, blood-thirsty swords, but due to his own laziness as a youth and general refusal to practice the saber, Huiasang's golden core (power-nougat) developed later in life and never grew as strong as his very talented peer group. It's still there! And it keeps him looking fresh-faced and youthful, but it's not enough for anyone to be threatened by his magic.
He's far more capable with scholarly pursuits, like talisman-creation, astronomy, general folklore and research into spell-casting, arrays, etc. Anything that really doesn't have to do with direct combat.
Since his golden core will be completely suppressed, the main abilities that will be outright locked to him will be quick-healing, and any sort of magic sword-flying (not that he was any good at it). He also won't be able to do his usual magic with arrays and talismans -- anything he comes up with would be purely theoretical.
Huaisang has two far more powerful weapons than cultivation: his keen mind, and crying.
Huaisang's magic Wuxia powers are fairly weak compared to his peers. His clan cultivates through using haunted, blood-thirsty swords, but due to his own laziness as a youth and general refusal to practice the saber, Huiasang's golden core (power-nougat) developed later in life and never grew as strong as his very talented peer group. It's still there! And it keeps him looking fresh-faced and youthful, but it's not enough for anyone to be threatened by his magic.
He's far more capable with scholarly pursuits, like talisman-creation, astronomy, general folklore and research into spell-casting, arrays, etc. Anything that really doesn't have to do with direct combat.
Since his golden core will be completely suppressed, the main abilities that will be outright locked to him will be quick-healing, and any sort of magic sword-flying (not that he was any good at it). He also won't be able to do his usual magic with arrays and talismans -- anything he comes up with would be purely theoretical.
Huaisang has two far more powerful weapons than cultivation: his keen mind, and crying.
Inmate Information: He's like Edmond Dantès, except with more crying!
Huaisang grew up as the spoiled half-sibling of the commanding (and handsome rwar) Nie Mingjue, heir to the Nie Sect and powerhouse of the cultivation world. While his brother studied the traditional Nie cultivation technique of the saber and was considered one of the strongest cultivators of his generation, Huaisang always shirked saber practice and his studies in favor of more gentlemanly pursuits like painting and dressing real fancy. And though he always hated disappointing his older brother, because of his general lack of care it took Huaisang a long time to develop a golden core and to eventually pass his studies with Lan Qiren.
Of course this general lack of seriousness does not an inmate make, but it was this path that solidified Huaisang's persona as the 'head shaker' -- weak in cultivation, weak in his vices, weak as an eventual Sect Leader. Huaisang was perfectly content not to change public opinion about it either, happy to continue avoiding saber practice, ducking the scolding of his elder brother, or taking any real responsibility as an heir to a prominent cultivation sect. Huaisang was always more happy to solve his problems by avoiding them altogether, usually coupled with copious amounts of crying, whining, and using his favorite catch phrase, "I don't know!"
For a while the general laziness and sometimes cowardly behavior were his only real faults. He pursued his art and his bird-keeping, his fan collecting and fancy dressin', living under the protection of his older brother until his tragic (and super gruesome) death by way of Qi deviation. It was an ugly and painful process that stripped his brother of his sanity, and one that happened right in front of Huaisang's eyes.
Huaisang spent his life hiding the truth about himself -- that he was, in fact, a very clever, very keen, very patient man, more like his older brother than maybe even he realized. He was someone who was perfectly willing to play the part of the crybaby fool in order to conceal his true nature. Once he realized that his trusted friend, Nie Mingjue's own sworn younger brother, Jin Guangyao, was the reason for his brother's quickened death and the mysterious disappearance of his corpse, Huaisang slowly began to craft an elaborate plot to not only avenge his brother, but completely destroy the man who did it and anyone else that might have been even remotely involved.
He’s essentially responsible for all of the major events in the main storyline of The Untamed. In his Rube-Goldberg Machine-like plan he was the one who unearthed the soul-sacrifice ritual and passed it along to the very mentally ill and very horribly abused Mo Xuanyu, manipulating him into giving up his soul to bring back Wei Wuxian from the dead. In doing this he not only wiped one person from the face of the earth, but revived another in order to use him to further his own schemes. He then placed his former childhood friend at the center of his plot, manipulating him and countless others to find his brother's corpse and unearth all of Jin Guangyao's wrongdoings.
It's worth pointing out that Jin Guangyao was an ally of Huaisang's, even a brother-figure (in many ways more than just symbolic too, since his elder brother was 'sworn brothers' with him). Guangyao was someone who Huaisang trusted immensely, even after a few missteps on Guangyao's part. Guangyao was there after his brother died to offer him comfort, and he continued to help Huaisang whenever he asked and indulged him in his hobbies. When Huaisang learned that Jin Guangyao had caused the death of his brother he quickly and immediately turned on him, and started looking into his other past misdeeds -- his protection and friendship with the murderer Xue Yang, his murder of his father, his relationship with his half-sister. Huaisang learned all of these things and continued manipulating and playing up the know-nothing headshaker who needed Jin Guangyao to solve of his problems.
But wait, there's more! During his machinations Huaisang acted pretty recklessly with the lives of junior cultivators -- we're talking innocent kids who are as young as 14. He lured them into a trap using some pretty horrific instances of animal murder, probably with the intent of having Jin Guangyao's henchman, Xue Yang, outright killing all of them and adding to the blood on Guangyao's hands. He put a buuuunch of other people in danger too by unleashing his brother's fierce corpse, which he fully knew only a few people could even hope to contain.
In addition to the child endangerment and general manipulation, Huaisang also went blackmail happy with Guangyao, finding people he'd tried to hide away to cover up his crimes and sending lots of threatening letters. He deliberately provoked Guangyao into action, which he was perfectly aware could have led to a fair amount of bloodshed (though thankfully didn't? though folks still died). He indirectly caused the death of Guangyao's wife by bribing a maid close to her mother to reveal her the awful truth about her and her husband's shared parentage.
Huaisang's final piece of revenge involved a pretty dramatic showdown in Guanyin Temple. A fleeing Jin Guangyao was trying to retrieve his mother's corpse and bolt before his crimes could be exposed, but instead came across a poisoned booby trap (which killed more people!!!) and Nie Mingjue's stitched together fierce corpse, which Huaisang had switched out before anyone could arrive. After the pieces fell into place and Guangyao was pretty badly injured but still not dead, Huaisang used Lan Xichen, one of his biggest supporters and someone who always came to his aid when he needed, to kill Jin Guangyao once and for all.
Huaisang grew up as the spoiled half-sibling of the commanding (and handsome rwar) Nie Mingjue, heir to the Nie Sect and powerhouse of the cultivation world. While his brother studied the traditional Nie cultivation technique of the saber and was considered one of the strongest cultivators of his generation, Huaisang always shirked saber practice and his studies in favor of more gentlemanly pursuits like painting and dressing real fancy. And though he always hated disappointing his older brother, because of his general lack of care it took Huaisang a long time to develop a golden core and to eventually pass his studies with Lan Qiren.
Of course this general lack of seriousness does not an inmate make, but it was this path that solidified Huaisang's persona as the 'head shaker' -- weak in cultivation, weak in his vices, weak as an eventual Sect Leader. Huaisang was perfectly content not to change public opinion about it either, happy to continue avoiding saber practice, ducking the scolding of his elder brother, or taking any real responsibility as an heir to a prominent cultivation sect. Huaisang was always more happy to solve his problems by avoiding them altogether, usually coupled with copious amounts of crying, whining, and using his favorite catch phrase, "I don't know!"
For a while the general laziness and sometimes cowardly behavior were his only real faults. He pursued his art and his bird-keeping, his fan collecting and fancy dressin', living under the protection of his older brother until his tragic (and super gruesome) death by way of Qi deviation. It was an ugly and painful process that stripped his brother of his sanity, and one that happened right in front of Huaisang's eyes.
Huaisang spent his life hiding the truth about himself -- that he was, in fact, a very clever, very keen, very patient man, more like his older brother than maybe even he realized. He was someone who was perfectly willing to play the part of the crybaby fool in order to conceal his true nature. Once he realized that his trusted friend, Nie Mingjue's own sworn younger brother, Jin Guangyao, was the reason for his brother's quickened death and the mysterious disappearance of his corpse, Huaisang slowly began to craft an elaborate plot to not only avenge his brother, but completely destroy the man who did it and anyone else that might have been even remotely involved.
He’s essentially responsible for all of the major events in the main storyline of The Untamed. In his Rube-Goldberg Machine-like plan he was the one who unearthed the soul-sacrifice ritual and passed it along to the very mentally ill and very horribly abused Mo Xuanyu, manipulating him into giving up his soul to bring back Wei Wuxian from the dead. In doing this he not only wiped one person from the face of the earth, but revived another in order to use him to further his own schemes. He then placed his former childhood friend at the center of his plot, manipulating him and countless others to find his brother's corpse and unearth all of Jin Guangyao's wrongdoings.
It's worth pointing out that Jin Guangyao was an ally of Huaisang's, even a brother-figure (in many ways more than just symbolic too, since his elder brother was 'sworn brothers' with him). Guangyao was someone who Huaisang trusted immensely, even after a few missteps on Guangyao's part. Guangyao was there after his brother died to offer him comfort, and he continued to help Huaisang whenever he asked and indulged him in his hobbies. When Huaisang learned that Jin Guangyao had caused the death of his brother he quickly and immediately turned on him, and started looking into his other past misdeeds -- his protection and friendship with the murderer Xue Yang, his murder of his father, his relationship with his half-sister. Huaisang learned all of these things and continued manipulating and playing up the know-nothing headshaker who needed Jin Guangyao to solve of his problems.
But wait, there's more! During his machinations Huaisang acted pretty recklessly with the lives of junior cultivators -- we're talking innocent kids who are as young as 14. He lured them into a trap using some pretty horrific instances of animal murder, probably with the intent of having Jin Guangyao's henchman, Xue Yang, outright killing all of them and adding to the blood on Guangyao's hands. He put a buuuunch of other people in danger too by unleashing his brother's fierce corpse, which he fully knew only a few people could even hope to contain.
In addition to the child endangerment and general manipulation, Huaisang also went blackmail happy with Guangyao, finding people he'd tried to hide away to cover up his crimes and sending lots of threatening letters. He deliberately provoked Guangyao into action, which he was perfectly aware could have led to a fair amount of bloodshed (though thankfully didn't? though folks still died). He indirectly caused the death of Guangyao's wife by bribing a maid close to her mother to reveal her the awful truth about her and her husband's shared parentage.
Huaisang's final piece of revenge involved a pretty dramatic showdown in Guanyin Temple. A fleeing Jin Guangyao was trying to retrieve his mother's corpse and bolt before his crimes could be exposed, but instead came across a poisoned booby trap (which killed more people!!!) and Nie Mingjue's stitched together fierce corpse, which Huaisang had switched out before anyone could arrive. After the pieces fell into place and Guangyao was pretty badly injured but still not dead, Huaisang used Lan Xichen, one of his biggest supporters and someone who always came to his aid when he needed, to kill Jin Guangyao once and for all.
When asked directly, Huaisang never admitted outright to Lan Xichen that he had lied about Guangyao trying to attack him. He let him shoulder the blame entirely, and walked his happy ass away with his enemy dead, his former ally emotionally destroyed, the cultivation world completely upended, and his brother's corpse stitched back together and sealed in a coffin with Guangyao. Revenge complete, Huaisang went back to lead the Nie Clan with zero consequences!!! yay!!!
As an inmate on the Barge he'll be pretty likely to be laid back and fun-loving, even helpful and rule-abiding (so long as you don't make him do stuff, please don't make him do stuff). He'll be one of those innocuous-looking inmates until you find out what he's done, and when confronted he'll have zero remorse about it. The only time he'll be actively dangerous is 1. if Guangyao happens to be on the Barge, or 2. someone he bonds with like he'd bonded with his brother is harmed. In that case he'll move from just being 'a guy who did really bad things and doesn't lose sleep about it' to 'an active threat'. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty, so it'll all be some intense and probably over-the-top scheming, because that's what he's best at.
Path to Redemption:
Huaisang will likely try to hide himself as he's always done by pretending to be an absolute useless fool. He doesn't know anything! What are you talking about, he just likes birds and art! Look at his neat fan! He could have more fans, you know. It's been a coping skill that's been tried and true for Huaisang, and something he has absolutely no shame in continuing once he's on the Barge. Anything to fly under the radar so he can continue doing whatever the hell he wants.
His ideal warden will be someone like his older brother, who he moved heaven and earth to avenge. Mingjue was very black-and-white with his morality, strong and disciplined, but also the kind of guy who would cry at basically any strong emotion. Huaisang never saw eye-to-eye with his brother about...most of the things, but was completely devoted to him. If a warden with even a passing familiarity to Mingjue (that is, big and tough but secretly sensitive and caring) can gain Huaisang's trust, they'd have a leg up over most.
Barring that, Huaisang really would get along with most wardens, so long as they don't either write him off entirely as just a spoiled brat, or try to play mind games with him. Someone that can acknowledge Huaisang's crafty mind but also his pain (and share a laugh with him) would have a better time than most to getting him to acknowledge that maaaaaybe his revenge plot was a little much. He's a people person, affable, even charming -- he enjoys a good personality, someone who can have a little fun, and he truly appreciates people who stick to the moral highroad even when it's difficult.
Huaisang’s redemption is going to have to focus heavily on the revenge plot, and how it never made him happy or even all that satisfied. He'll probably readily admit that it wasn't so much the satisfaction of the thing as just having an ending to the whole sordid saga, but unraveling the sheer effort it took to plan and enact such a thing will help Huaisang actually see how nuts it was. He'll need to face the fact that he hurt a lot of innocent people, which might take some doing because he was so focused on that vengeance thing he didn't care at the time, and let go of his hate for Jin Guangyao.
Huaisang should also be encouraged to drop the 'headshaker' persona altogether and examine why he needed it in the first place. Post-canon it's clear that he does exactly this, and actually moves on to being a reliable and even powerful person in the cultivation world. Pointing out that he's actually a pretty successful person who should be fairly proud of what he's accomplished would be a good way to start -- you know, while getting him to admit that he was suckering all the people around him to do his dirty work and handle his affairs for over a decade, all the while not offering any help back to them even though he was secretly capable.
So in closing: adoring your older brother = good! elaborate revenge plot = bad. pretending to be someone you're not = not great! using people for years so you can continue your elaborate revenge plot = my guy. my guy that's so wrong. collecting pretty fans = good!
History: Wiki Link Go go go!
Sample Network Entry:
[Huaisang turns on his communicator and places it oh-so-carefully on a stand, the wide sleeve of his robe blocking the shot as he fumbles to get just the right angle. It's important. He's clearly taking his time with this. In the frame, when he finally pulls back, he's positioned a blank scroll of xuan paper, two bamboo brushes, an inkstone, and an inkwell with water.]
[He sits down to paint. First the long, gnarled trunk of a weeping willow, then its winding and knotted vines. He adds in a bird, his strokes fluid, occasionally pausing to twist the end of the paintbrush in his mouth. He's actually quite good, and there's the oddest look of something like concentration in his eye. It's an unfamiliar sight to anyone who's had a conversation with him.]
There! You see?
[He sits back, looking pleased with himself.]
Of course, I also like to look at art and read, and talk about art and reading. I also enjoy collecting fans, but it isn't as though I can amass any sort of worthwhile collection here. [There's the famous Nie Huaisang pout!] You make it very difficult for a gentleman of leisure to do anything of importance here.
[Huaisang picks up his fan and flicks it open, reaching for the communicator to shut it off. But before he does --] That was an invitation, by the way, if anyone would like to discuss art and literature with me. Save me from my boredom! [Yes, Huaisang, you were not subtle about it.
Click.]
Sample RP: Sample RP Thread
Special Notes: He's not angry about the lack of a private washroom, but he will be super pissed he doesn't have his favorite fans with him. You monsters!
