#it's not bc i don't like lwj!! he's a good character himself

[birbfeedersart]

until now i've never even considered xiancheng as a ship?? like, i feel as though wwx's love for jc is an integral part of his character, and i do wish they'd had a better resolution in both mdzs & cql (unless something happened in the extras?? never got a chance to read them 😅) and tbh i am quite fond of both of their characters, but it never occurred to me to ship them. even with the golden core transfer. bc i would absolutely dig out my solidified soulstuff and give it to my little sister if she needed it. it's not even a question, i wouldn't give it a second thought. as an act of brotherly love the golden core transfer makes perfect sense to me. my sister, like jc, has the sort of personality where if she's got no ''''natural talent'''' she thinks she's not good enough, so she gives up. i've......never really been like that?? not being good at things has never actually STOPPED me from doing things. maybe i wouldn't perform for strangers, but i wouldn't stop. so i wouldn't feel the loss of it as much--or if i did, at least i could handle it better. i'd still be all right. i'd find a way. i always do.

however. the inherent romanticism of it. as a romance trope it is. yes yes very good. i like it. i like that. a lot. and ofc the old trope of shixiong/shidi (woh/shl my beloved!!) is also very welcome to me. perhaps if xiancheng had been endgame, maybe i would have liked mdzs/cql better?? idk, i'm not even sure why i don't like it as much as i'd hoped i would... 😩

#it's not bc i don't like lwj!! he's a good character himself #and seems like a nice fellow besides!! #it's just... i really don't like the lan sect tbh #the cloud recesses is just....awful. #all those rules....it's kind of nauseating to me #it's just so restrictive #and when i think of a free spirit like wwx spending all his time there #being stifled #i just...! ugh. no. do not want. i know he's not really imprisoned there or anything #but even if he IS allowed to be himself.....nobody else is. THEY still have to follow all the rules. THEY are still stifled. and being urse #urself around someone who can't is just so awkward #i used to know someone like that as a kid #i used to feel so guilty #that i could just be and she couldn't. bc she was chained by her strict parents #even when they weren't around. idk maybe my parents let me run too wild?? i might be the problem!! i have a real distaste for authority! i #i am a hooligan!! a ne'er do well!! #none of the cloud recesses stuff is actually lwj's fault anyway #i think i just resent the fact that it seems like he LIKES it. and that just??? does not compute??? #i have a harder time identifying with him than with some of the other characters #i really don't dislike him!! or lxc for that matter!! #i just think the cloud recesses is fecking lame #lotus pier is so much cooler #birb says #fandom meta #xiancheng #mdzs/cql i WANT TO LOVE U #but i just.....can't?? ;A; #i'm sorry ;A; #ok ok i REALLLLYYY need to get back to drawing #i'm colouring it now it's nearly done

[layzeal]

i said 5 months ago i was gonna share my thoughts on this scene and never did, so it's time to dig this out

what did wei wuxian mean by asking shijie "why would someone like another person" and why i.... don't think he's talking about lan wangji (i know-- i know. just bear with me)

or more accurately: an analysis of chapter 71, wwx's thoughts on love, and how mxtx utilizes parallels between past and present!

(Ch 71 of MDZS web revised edition //// ExR translation)

okay let's get straight to the point that's gonna make y'all want to call me a stupid bitch who can't read: i legitimately do not think wwx was talking about lwj in this scene! here's why:

first and foremost, let's remember what the status of wangxian's relationship was at this point after sunshot ended

first, phoenix mountain: a callback to their teen dynamic. wwx's silly and flirty personality is back, he teases lwj by throwing a peony at him then asking to borrow his ribbon. lwj is frustrated, etc. lwj forcefully kisses wwx then gets angry at himself. wwx finds him and gets worried that something happened to him. they walk together and talk in very friendly manner until the xuanli incident happens. by the end they part on good terms

then, yunmeng teahouse: the first scene of this chapter. wwx is feeling quite upbeat about seeing lwj as they had a nice chat last time they met. he does a lil phoenix mountan callback by throwing a peony at him, then asking him to come upstairs and hang out. lwj does but it.... doesnt end well. he's worried about wwx's worsening temper and fears he's starting to show signs of loss of control, and asks him once again to go to gusu with him. that severely sours wwx's mood, to the point of snapping at lwj when lwj implies that he'll regret it in the future. lwj realizes his mistake and they become polite again, but the atmosphere is significantly strained, and wwx even comments that he was presumptious and shouldn't have invited him over, which lwj dissents. wwx parts with a cordial but distant "thank you", and on... not great terms

what i think really makes the above hurt though is that, when wwx comes back to yunmeng and jc asks who he met. wwx answers this:

worse than jin zixuan.....oof. im so sorry hgj

so, it really is quite tragic. wwx had a nice time with lwj in phoenix mountain, and because of that he wanted to try and wash away their bad blood, ask him to hang out, recall some stories of their youth, maybe mend this relationship that became so strained during the war! what happens instead is that... he gets the harsh reminder of what (in his mind) lwj thinks of his cultivation, thinks he's not in control of it, that it's dangerous and he should be locked up. with that, they're all back to square one :(

the thing is, MDZS is quite known for being non-linear and having a humongous amount of flashbacks, and they're all set and positioned at the time they were for a reason! the thing is, as most read the novel once and then proceed to only revisit scenes separately, naturally forgetting about the grand-picture and the scenes that come before and after, we might misremember how some events play out or the state of the character arcs and relationships, and i believe the popular fanon interpretation that "omggg wwx was asking yanli this bc he likes lwj but can't admit this yet!!!! 🙈" is quite of a great example of this

but!! it's not for any bad reason, after all both the Audio Drama and CQL kinda play up this moment with some beautiful background music. this is, in the end, a romance novel! but let's put a pin on that for a bit and analyze what led to this scene, and why WWX came looking for shijie to ask her this

so as you see, the scene right before was wei wuxian and jiang cheng talking about jin zixuan, with jc asking wwx to not pick fights with him anymore since he's the heir of lanling jin. wwx is baffled because up until that point he and jc were trashtalking buddies when it came to jzx, but there's nothing they can do about it if shijie still likes him

that... makes wwx quite speechless, and he goes searching for her to get an answer. in his mind, jzx is still an awful, undeserving person! so why would shijie like him so much?

why would someone like another person?

of course, he's not as shameless to ask shijie right to her face why she likes someone like jzx, esp since she's already well familiar with his poor opinion of him, so he tries getting an "unbiased" answer by making a vague question, which in turn makes shijie think wwx is in love with someone else

now here's the thing: i feel like fandom tends to flanderize wwx when it comes to his unreliable narration, awareness of his own feelings or lan wangji's. we don't have time to get into that now, but if you've followed me for a while you know my thoughts on this

but here, specifically, i do not think wwx is in "denial about his crush" or "waving off because he doesnt want to get caught". his answer feels genuine, and honestly? really sad once you think about it

"I won't like anyone, at least not too much. Wouldn't it be like putting a rein on my own neck?"

this isn't strange once you consider the types of romantic relationships he grew up observing. other than his own parents', which he's mostly forgotten about, a strong love and attatchment sounds more like tying a rope around your neck. even though wwx is a romantic at heart who flirts easily but had been saving his first kiss for 20 years, he's still never felt this type of love for anyone before, and can't imagine putting himself through it

"So, wait... just because WWX said so you think you should believe it? You're telling me the curtains are just blue? If he's not talking about Lan Wangji, then what's the point of this scene?"

glad you asked!

you see, something that MXTX does quite often with the flashback placement in MDZS is contrast the moments where wangxian's relationship was at its best with moments where it was at its worst. As wwx recall these memories, his pre-conceived notions about lwj get challenged and his actions and words get recontextualized! my favorite example is probably the ending of the flashback of wwx's return, to him waking up in the cloud recesses

no i'll never shut up about this flashback placement. my goddd

so, when looking at the "why would someone like another person" scene, i ask you to not look at it by itself, but as a part of the literary work that mdzs is! because, as the wangxian of the past are stuck in this cordial, but strained relationship, do you remember where the wangxian of the present have currently been left at?

if you ask me, there is something incredibly sweet about leaving these characters at their most tender --- when one is finally beginning to not only understand his own feelings, but to suspect that those feelings are requited, in which he's allowing himself to imagine a calm and happy future with him right as they march inside the lion's den --- and meeting them again when they're younger, and strained, and not fully knowing how to communicate that they care for each other, which in turn only hurts them both.

there is something very sweet about seeing wwx who is slowly realizing that he's in love, testing the waters of that, seeing how much he can take, in what ways he can ask for affection, and then seeing him again as he says "i won't ever like someone, at least not so much. wouldnt it be suffocating? wouldn't it be an impediment? wouldnt it be shackling yourself?" because you, like a cheeky grandma, can look at him and think: you don't know yet, but i've seen you then. you will like someone very much, and it won't be restraining. in fact, you'll never feel more free...

and that is the biggest thing, about revisiting this scene after you're done. because you'll look back this 20-something WWX who genuinely believed loving someone to much is like putting a rein around his own neck... and knowing he'll know a love that not only will not feel like a restrain*, but will be there to catch him whenever something does

*okay, except in bed, but that's only a bonus for wwx

#i kinda miss literary analysis class. this is a love letter to my literature teachers #mdzs is a beautiful literary work and deserves to be treated as such! #anyways uhhh. wangxian is poggers #i feel like sometimes in people's attempts to make wx more tropey and traditionally romantic #it makes them lose what actually makes their romance so special #and the brilliance of the flashback placements in mdzs #i already wrote a lot today so no tag essay lmao. enjoy! #modao #lace speaks #do i put this in the tag? ehhhh #demi wwx

[llycaons]

I talk big about in-character writing as if I wasn't 2 chapters into a wx AU of a desperately tragic yet very hokey movie called 'unleashed' about an orphan raised like a dog by a mob boss as an enforcer who breaks free from his captors and starts reconnecting with his humanity and this orphan hero is none other than lan wangji...

edit: I'm almost done and this is less offensively bad that just....deeply odd. long rambling post under the cut

this is why I tend to dislike AUs based on very specific works - the characterizations and relationships just don't match and it feels like reading another story. because it IS.

first of all, why is this dehumanized and abused character manipulated into a weapon who lost his parents young and was treated like an animal lwj and not wwx? it would fit the story better. wwx (survivalist, very powerful, abused and used in canon) escapes and finds a lovely, stable, (wealthy), somewhat naive, caretaking piano teacher with a young son. he slowly recovers in a safe place as he grapples with his past of abuse and cruelty. he learns to love and be loved. but lwj is one of the wealthiest and most sheltered characters in the show! the choices simply do not make sense!

like...the lwj is decent, but that's only bc this lwj has been raised in very different circumstances and his core character traits (loving animals/music/wwx/small children, having a hidden humorous side, wanting to help people and generally unwilling to hurt the innocent) are somewhat simplistic. his other important traits (like his specific relationship with rules, his character arc as it related to his sect, how he acts wrt his privilege) don't really get a chance to manifest in this situation. he's pretty straightforward, which just makes the wx dynamic pretty boring.

based on his thoughts and dialogue, wwx just thinks he's just a hot sweetheart and so so good and brave. which he IS ig, but it's lacking the drama or intrigue or flair of canon. canon wwx didn't fall in love with simply a good brave kind sweetheart, he fell in love with someone with very strong principles that aligned with his, who challenged him at every turn and surprised him with his hidden sweet side and caretaking streak and humor and eventual willingness to break rules. who is also hot and good at swordfighting. there's shades of this to the relationship, but it's ultimately just a watered-down and decontextualized version of canon. and the draw of wwx and lwj and their relationship has so much to do with canon that this AU is just kind of boring and irrelevant to read

speaking of which, the wwx is VERY odd and somewhat insulting. he's currently a single dad of a-yuan (🙄, and side note but wq and wn aren't even RELATED to the bad wens???? way to drop a really important and thematically relevant detail), and he's a building super so he collects rents, and his personal history is similar to college except he has this really strange characterization around college and in this entanglement with this woman whose death he feels responsible for. like he describes himself as a failing student who drank way too much without getting into the why of it all or the other people who were definitely in his life at the time, also canon wwx at that same age was still a highly prolific and celebrated author even in the midst of severe trauma AND alcoholism. and he described himself and this oc woman as 'two shitty people who had nobody else to be shitty with' or something and then talked about how she was an addict and it was just a really strange and and insulting (to addicts) and ooc direction for his character to be taken.

like wwx always had a ton of friends except for when he was a social pariah for saving people from literal death camps and even then the wens and his siblings really cared about him so idk why his primary social connection is this oc woman whose only purpose is to have a baby and then be a bad mother/partner and then die to make wwx feel angsty. like, he does talk about her ballet skills and her intelligence and her humor but her role in the story is pure plot device. it must be from the original movie but it's SO random and shitty and ooc and cruel to addicts? and if you write an AU for a fanfic that you want to make sense you really have to actually alter the other work a bit to accommodate the other relationships and character dynamics. it would have made more sense for wwx to be barely scraping by while working three jobs and getting disowned by the jiangs and still getting straight As even if he struggled with alcoholism. and then he still would have taken in a-yuan if the alternative was the foster system. a-yuan's biological parentage and wx's adoption of him is genuinely so important oh it makes me mad they erased that

speaking of family, the jc and jyl aren't too bad and the jfm is mostly fine but the myu is bizarre. instead of the abusive, out of control, shaming, self-centered, violent woman from canon who literally hates wwx's guts, she's a kind of sharp divorcee whose method to curry favor with her grandchildren is to buy them expensive gifts and who asks nosy but well-meaning questions about wwx's love life. I do think myu would dote on a grandchild, but NOT if it was wwx's. his role in the jiangs is a little difficult to translate completely accurately to a modern setting, but her dislike for him and her blame on him for ruining her marriage and being better than her son is a really important part of her character. adult wwx would by all rights offer her the respect she is due as his parental figure, but would likely avoid her when possible and need to seek support from other people in his life when he interacts with her. and I don't think he'd easily let her be a part of his child's life. because she abused him as a child and teenager!

#stories like this in which someone is so completely dehumanized and isolated #to the point they cant read and don't know how to operate in the world are so very disturbing #im thinking of real life situations I read about. I don't have many fictional examples since I avoid these stories #really harrowing and heartbreaking stories. I do not tend to enjoy them in fiction #but for all the disclaimers about being ooc I actually think this is pretty decent characterization #for an lwj who was literally treated like a dog for his entire life #ficblogging

[admirableadmiranda]

Unfortunately anon, without knowing what post this came from, it's impossible to say what the poster meant by "like that" -> this came from the takes that frames lwj as a miserable rule stickler who leads a miserable half-life bc he's super bad at talking until wx become a thing :/

Ah, thank you anon! Yes I don't understand those takes, they don't understand Lan Wangji and honestly they usually don't understand Wei Wuxian either.

If Lan Wangji were really what they suggested, a miserable rule stickler who has nothing and no one interesting in his life or about him until Wei Wuxian walks in and shows him how to be moral and how to talk to people and everything, then what would make Wei Wuxian even interested in him? If he were flat and without dimension, then why would the audience love him throughout all of his life, even the parts where Wei Wuxian is not involved at all?

He has a full, rich life with people who he loves and who love him, where he doesn't have regrets in how he goes and lives his life before Wei Wuxian even comes back into it. He talks as he needs to, he goes wherever he wishes, he is so heroic the common people gave him a name celebrating how good he is, something even Wei Wuxian didn't get either during or after the Sunshot Campaign, and when he does it is not a title that comes from his actions.

Lan Wangji is a fantastic, well rounded character from the moment he sets foot onto the page and astonishingly while yes, falling in love with Wei Wuxian gave him more to work with, he already was fantastic the way he was even before that.

People just wish that he had less character so that they could pretend they are him saving poor helpless Wei Wuxian from the whole evil world, or being saved by bright, charismatic Wei Wuxian who's gonna take care of them like a husband/mom and forget how much both of them have so much more to them than that.

Lan Wangji wasn't sad or broken before he met Wei Wuxian. If their paths had never crossed, he would have still been a man happy in himself with the choices he makes. He just now gets to be even happier.

#mdzs #lan wangji #summon the lan wangji defense squad #asks #anon #anon asks

[ibijau]

fave 10 characters from any media and why u like them?

10. Ori from The Hobbit. He's a fun lil guy and he was my main blorbo in that fandom and I just liked him a lot for his pointless bravery and how very adorable he was

9. Tiffany Aching from the Discworld. Many reasons, but mostly it's a specific part of the first book that has stuck with me through the years. I don't have the exact quote, but something about her opponent calling her selfish like it's the worst thing she could be, and a part of her just owning it like. Yes, she's selfish. And she's still going to protect the people around her, because those are her people. And it just... I just love that moment.

8. Polgara from The Belgariad (and associated books). Role model lady!! But more seriously, I loved how complex she was, and how she was allowed to be clever and powerful and kind, but also bitchy and petty, and it wasn't... the narrative didn't judge or punish her for it? I don't enjoy David and Leigh Eddings books as much as I did as a teenager, but damn, the characters in it were really cool and Polgara most of all

7. Rapunzel from Tangled. To make it short, I got the dvd the year I went no-contact with my mom, and I watched it dozens of time, and it was very therapeutic.

6.Katniss Everdeen, but specifically from the book as I wasn't too impressed with the films. She's just a fascinating character, with so much rage and anger (all justified!!) and it's really cool to see her grow to understand that her world is even more fucked up than she thought, and trying to figure out how to deal with it when everyone is trying to manipulate her one way or another.

5. Lan Xichen. I love his mix of gentle politeness and determination. He is a good man whose kindness is treated as a fault to be taken advantage of by his best friend. Again and again he is confronted with difficult choices (leaving or staying when his sects burns, what to do with lwj when he sides with wwx, what to do with jgy when his guilt is revealed) and he very sincerely tries his best with the information he has. I love him. Fuck but I love him. He is so good. He is so very good, and he tries so damn hard to be fair, and I love him.

4. Granny Weatherwax from the Discworld. She is a BITCH and we LOVE HER. Just. Damn, but there's something so reassuring about her existing as a character? Like. Yeah, she's not very nice. But she tries her best to be good, even when it's not easy, even when it's not pleasant.

3. Nie Huaisang. Whaaaaaat, he is only number three? what fraud is this?? But yeah, I love him a lot, and I think he's just cool. I have no idea who he is in canon. We know who he was, and who he appears to be, but there's pretty much no clues as to the person he really is. How much of the image he presents is real, how much is fake, and does it even matter, does he even know himself what's real or not? I love a character open to interpretation!

2. Bertha Mason (from Jane Eyre). I think she's just a fascinating character, shrouded in mysteries. She is the greatest of evils, and she is the greatest of victims. She is a murdering foul bitch, and she is a woman whose life was controlled by the men around her. There are so, so many ways to read her character, so many possible interpretations! It makes it really fun to write fanfics about her, and to read about people's opinions of her. Which... is kind of a theme here, uh?

Link from any of the main games except Skyward Sword. Listen I know he's usually got the personality of a paperclip, but also he's cool and brave and funny, and I've spent countless hours of my youth (...and of my adult years too...) playing Zelda games, and I started writing and drawing out of love for the franchise, and I just think he's a neat character bc you can project whatever you want upon him

#jau rants #I like complicated and ambivalent characters I guess

[hei-shu]

I posted 1,275 times in 2022

That's 1,253 more posts than 2021!

39 posts created (3%)

1,236 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@liziocit

@ladypfenix

@mondengel

@grewlikefancyflowers

@motivationisdead

I tagged 808 of my posts in 2022

Only 37% of my posts had no tags

#mdzs - 448 posts

#wei wuxian - 169 posts

#wangxian - 146 posts

#lan wangji - 83 posts

#mdzs fanart - 57 posts

#canon jiang cheng - 47 posts

#cql - 32 posts

#lmao - 28 posts

#cats - 27 posts

#asexuality - 15 posts

Longest Tag: 135 characters

#this concept of loving a person 'because' they're good and not 'despite' them being evil is so important to me in this mess of a fandom

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I was surfing through Twitter (not a good decision, I know) and saw some JC stan bullshit again.

You know how they like to say something along the lines of 'JC didn't really hate WWX actually, it's complicated' and then use the scene where JC yelled at WWX to apologise to his parents tablets at the inn as an example? They'll use that scene to say that JC doesn't actually want to kill WWX, and then conveniently not mention the fact that he used Fairy, a creature that he knows that WWX is terrified of, to purposefully threaten him. It's very clear, through his own words and the narrative, that JC doesn't just want WWX dead, he wants him to suffer first, just like all the other so-called 'demonic cultivators' that he captured. Just because he never got the chance to doesn't excuse that.

Also, I'm pretty sure that using someone's phobia against them is very not okay. But hey, apparently to JC stans torture threats (which are very likely to be followed through if JC got the chance) are fine as long as you did not kill that person :)

JC stans will also conveniently forget that when he suspected that MXY was possessed by WWX, his first instinct was to whip him with Zidian. It doesn't matter whether or not Zidian will destroy the soul or just force them out of a possessed body. The fact that he doesn't even hesitate to do so is very telling. He very much wants WWX gone, alright.

It doesn't matter whether JC actually loved WWX or not bc his actions towards WWX is extremely abusive. If you think that scaring a loved one with their phobia while relishing in their suffering is okay, then your standards must be concerningly low.

27 notes - Posted March 11, 2022

#4

In some MDZS fanfics;

JC to WWX: LWJ hates you.

Also JC, after wx got together: Took you long enough.

Me: ???

28 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

#3

Fanon JC is like — ah yes let me just adopt this feverish child whose family and protector was massacred by a siege led by me :)

(p.s. I also once suggested the protector to send this child and his family of the old and weak back to the cruel labor camps btw 🥰🥰)

30 notes - Posted September 5, 2022

#2

"the yunmeng trio are a family" lmao, let's see JC's perspective 👇

JC to WWX: YoU WeRE SuPpoSEd tO Be My SuBOrdiNatE-

If JC & WWX really are a family (which they are not), then it's very toxic. Every time JC opens his mouth it's about things like 'you owe a debt to my sect' and 'my father favours you' and 'you are the cause of my sect's destruction' and 'my mother was right about you'. This kind of power dynamic is better off not called a familial relationship.

In contrast, yiling trio won't kill each other and they also deeply respect one another, so it's a healthier relationship. There's no superior-inferior dynamic going on between them. They are more 'family' than yunmeng trio could ever be.

I guess JYL could be WWX's family, she isn't malicious, loves WWX enough to sacrifice her life for him, but not powerful enough to do much either. As for JC? I don't think he would be happy if WWX is considered as a part of his family, unless a servant is also considered family. After all, the only advantage JC has over WWX all his life is his gentry status, how could a classist like JC ever be willing to see WWX, the 'son of a servant', in the same social class as himself?

43 notes - Posted May 28, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Everyday I think about the irony that while everyone praises the virtuous HGJ and regards him as the role model for the future generations, they curse the name of the wicked YLLZ and use him as the epitome of evil to warn the younger generation, all the while oblivious to the fact that this 'evil' YLLZ is actually someone HGJ treasures the most.

I remember a fanfic where LSZ wondered about someone HGJ admires and it really stuck with me bc it feels so ironic. Since HGJ is already so good and respected by many, then the person he looked up to must be very great too, right? Well, that's true, you see, the man HGJ admires and loves the most was so righteous that he was condemned and criminalised by the cultivation world and died for it and yet the cultivation world still curses his name and wants his soul destroyed. That man is the fucking YLLZ, and HGJ is very willing to cut off people's arms for him.

119 notes - Posted April 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[plan-d-to-i]

you probably already talked about it, but i really need to know further about this topic

Jiang YanLi

I don't really know what to think about... her. I have several reasons to dislike her, but I also have a lot of reasons to think that she is not bad if compared to the rest of the Jiangs. people say that she liked wwx better, but it just doesn't make sense to me. i have no clue about how far I can protect her bc of her ignorance, bc she wasn't aware of a bunch of stuff because I have no clue of how much she actually knew. she indeed loved wwx and treated him good, but love alone isn't enough. lack of action— no, actions that would get things worse, such as fucking marrying into the very sect that wanted her beloved a-xian's head on a platter, to rob his inventions and to attack the 50 people he was strugling to protect. people that she didn't really did anything to try to save as well. she also didn't try her best to save wwx. I see a lot on fanfics or fanon headcanons that she was So Worried About Her Baby Brother 💔 when in fact she acted as if everything was normal. as if her soup would fix things. wwx himself says that lwj keeps on reminding him how everything is different now the only person who was actually freaking out to keep wwx safe. the one and only who was concearned and actually cared. she acts so... naturally. wwx also does everything he does bc of his instincts and jc couldn't care less as long as wwx won the fucking war. it's clear he's done reckless things to protect them before.

also... her relationship with each brother. why is she constantly asking wwx to stop? to "get it aside?" since their very first strong connection, she was there bc jc didn't want to be in trouble and wanted wwx to not to say anything about their fight.

I don't know how much she didn't know about politics, I know it was very little, but I cannot believe she is that stupid. she is such an aNgEL to wwx that... she scapes from further analysis. i just... I don't know. what do you think of her?

— mlisz

I think the reason YanLi can feel hard to pin down is because there are two versions of her. The version WWX sees and presents to us through rose tinted glasses because she's the only person to show him warmth in the Jiang household; and YanLi's actual character/ actions in the story: a kind but mediocre girl who preferred to remain naive and pretend everything was ok, who just wanted everyone to put on a smile, and whose main concern was getting married;

In many respects Wei Wuxian's relationship with YanLi is loving but shallow because he can't really share his troubles with her. Her way of relating to others is by mothering them. I know a lot of people complain that she was shoved into this role, but it just seems to be her natural way of showing her affection for others. So for her contentment WWX is happy to act like a kid. In that way the dynamic between them feels somewhat performative on his part.

"Jiang YanLi passed a handkerchief for Wei WuXian to wipe his mouth, “Is it good?���

Wei WuXian didn’t take the handkerchief. Instead, he pouted his mouth with exaggeration, “Yes!”

Jiang Cheng, “Don’t you have hands yourself?!”

With a smile, Jiang YanLi wiped Wei WuXian’s mouth and chin, and walked happily out with the bowl in her hands.

She makes soup for him and shows him a nurturing warmth and in exchange he acts like everything is ok and keeps smiling for her and embraces the only qualities she has: cooking soup, mothering and appeasement. That dynamic is set up from the start when she praises him after he takes the blame for getting injured squarely on his shoulders.

“Seeing how worried he seemed, Wei WuXian took the initiative, “Relax. I won’t tell Uncle Jiang. I only hurt myself because I suddenly wanted to climb a tree last night.”

Hearing this, Jiang Cheng sighed in relief. He swore, “You can relax as well. Anytime I see a dog, I’ll chase it away for you!”

Seeing how the two finally made up with each other, Jiang YanLi cheered, “That’s the spirit.”

It also feels like once the main subject of her affection shows her attention she sort of forgets about everything else. I mean Jin Zixuan is the heir of the family that wants Wei Wuxian dead... but when she finally communicates with Wei Wuxian after his defection it's to show off her wedding dress for her impending wedding to the man and expects WWX to rejoice... On top of that she doesn't ask once how he's doing. Doesn't think to bring him one thing other than soup. She's helped out in the camps during the war so regardless of how immensely ignorant and sheltered she may be she has to at least have SOME idea of the fact that people need food and shelter that and generally requires a form of payment. Again people will be like she was poor! She didn't have her own money! Even if she didn't have one penny to spare as the sister of a CLAN LEADER of one of the richest Clans, this is a point where she could have told jiang cheng to give Wei Wuxian silver in front of her and go off on him if he didn't. Hell she had jewelry! Qiankun bags are a thing. It's absurd to act like there was nothing she could do other than show WWX her fit. But she didn't. She preferred everything swept under the rug. Her big wedding dress reveal is a farce of caring. Wei Wuxian knows his part. Be grateful for the soup, admire the dress and act like everything is fine. And as always she downplays jiang cheng's temper and snide comments and asks of Wei Wuxian to compromise around it.

"Both of you can stop fooling around. I brought soup for you two. Wait a second.”

The thing is Wei Wuxian wasn't fooling around. jc was being nasty. She takes a bowl of soup to Wen Ning... a fierce corpse who can't eat even though she grew up in a cultivation Clan... She doesn't however ask Wen Ning to stay inside the courtyard. She let jiang cheng rudely kick him out... That's almost like her entire behavior in a nutshell. Appease jc and apply soup.

Wen Qing on the other hand lived her whole life aiming to protect Wen Ning but then went with him so they could turn themselves in in the hopes of making things better for Wei Wuxian. This was not an impulsive act. It was discussed, it was though through, consciously decided with a cool head and full knowledge of the fatal consequences.

When Yanli she makes her ill fated run to Nightless city it's clear she's not in her right mind. It's interesting that the two times the jiang siblings moved to protect Wei Wuxian was when they'd lost something major, whereas the Wen siblings risked the height of their privilege to help. I've also seen people write that "YanLi even forgave Wei Wuxian for Zixuan's death" but we're not told that at all

“Jiang YanLi, “I’m… I’m here to tell you…”

To tell him what? That it’s fine? That I don’t hate you? That everything is fine?That I don’t blame you for have killed Jin ZiXuan? It was impossible.

But she couldn’t say anything that was the opposite either. And so, she didn’t know what else she could say to Wei Wei WuXian, under such circumstances.

She saw him and ran after him without thinking to see him one last time, but she asks him to stop fighting against all the people who would kill him.

With a sigh, Jiang Yanli said, "Axian, you... stop first. Don't do it again, don't..."

Idk what her thinking is here but she's definitely not treating him like he's the one who was ambushed and walked in on a party cheerfully moodboarding his murder. YanLi is not an evil person and she benefits from the contrast with her foul mother and brother but she's willfully naive to the point where it's harmful. She also expects Wei Wuxian to compromise around jiang cheng so in that way she does not treat them equally. In the end though just like when Wei Wuxian first fell from the tree and still got hurt because YanLi could not catch him, her love was always going to fall short. That's why Lan Wangji catching him securely is so symbolic. So just because Wei Wuxian has warm feelings towards her doesn't mean as a reader you can't find her insipid and uninspiring when she is in fact written as mediocre.

#mdzs #Jiang YanLi #Wei Wuxian #mdzs meta

[pumpkinpaix]

hello there, hope you're having a nice day <3

so i've been reading a lot of fics lately, uk for sanity's sake, and i've noticed that in most of them, lwj doesn't use contractions (eg., says do not instead of don't)?? and i think he doesn't in the novel either but i don't remember lol so i can't be sure but anyway that made me curious - does chinese have contractions as well? does he not use it bc it's informal?

hello there! I’m doing all right, i started to answer this ask while waiting for a jingyeast loaf to come out of the oven 😊 many thanks to @bookofstars for helping me look over/edit/correct this post!! :D

anyways! the answer to your questions are complicated (of course it is when is anything simple with me), so let’s see if I can break it down--you’re asking a) whether chinese has contractions, b) if it does, how does they change the tone of the sentence--is it similar to english or no?, and c) how does this all end up with lan wangji pretty much never using contractions in english fic/translation?

I’m gonna start by talking about how formality is (generally) expressed in each language, and hopefully, by the end of this post, all the questions will have been answered in one way or another. so: chinese and english express variations in formality/register differently, oftentimes in ways that run contrary to one another. I am, as always, neither a linguist nor an expert in chinese and english uhhh sociological grammar? for lack of a better word. I’m speaking from my own experience and knowledge :D

so with a character like lan wangji, it makes perfect sense in english to write his dialogue without contractions, as contractions are considered informal or colloquial. I don’t know if this has changed in recent years, but I was always taught in school to never use contractions in my academic papers.

However! not using contractions necessarily extends the length of the sentence: “do not” takes longer to say than “don’t”, “cannot” is longer than “can’t” etc. in english, formality is often correlated with sentence length: the longest way you can say something ends up sounding the most formal. for a very simplified example, take this progression from least formal to absurdly formal:

whatcha doin’?

what’re you doing?

what are you doing? [standard colloquial]

may I ask what you are doing?

might I inquire as to what you are doing?

excuse me, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

pardon my intrusion, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

please pardon my intrusion, but might inquire as to the nature of your current actions?

this is obviously a somewhat overwrought example, but you get the point. oftentimes, the longer, more complex, more indirect sentence constructions indicate a greater formality, often because there is a simultaneous decreasing of certainty. downplaying the speaker’s certainty can show deference (or weakness) in english, while certainty tends to show authority/confidence (or aggression/rudeness).

different words also carry different implications of formality—in the example, I switched “excuse me” to “pardon me” during one of the step ups. pardon (to me at least) feels like a more formal word than “excuse”. Similarly, “inquire” is more formal than “ask” etc. I suspect that at least some of what makes one word seem more formal than one of its synonyms has to do with etymology. many of english’s most formal/academic words come from latin (which also tends to have longer words generally!), while our personal/colloquial words tend to have germanic origins (inquire [latin] vs ask [germanic]).

you’ll also notice that changing a more direct sentence structure (“may I ask what”) to a more indirect one (“might I inquire as to”) also jumps a register. a lot of english is like this — you can complicate simple direct sentences by switching the way you use the verbs/how many auxiliaries you use etc.

THE POINT IS: with regards to english, more formal sentence structures are often (not always) longer and more indirect than informal ones. this leads us to a problem with a character like lan wangji.

lan wangji is canonically very taciturn. if he can express his meaning in two words rather than three, then he will. and chinese allows for this—in extreme ways. if you haven’t already read @hunxi-guilai’s post on linguistic register (in CQL only, but it’s applicable across the board), I would start there because haha! I certainly do Not have a degree in Classical Chinese lit and she does a great job. :D

you can see from the examples that hunxi chose that often, longer sentences tend to be more informal in chinese (not always, which I’ll circle back to at the end lol). Colloquial chinese makes use of helping particles to indicate tone and meaning, as is shown in wei wuxian’s dialogue. and, as hunxi explained, those particles are largely absent from lan wangji’s speech pattern. chinese isn’t built of “words” in the way English is—each character is less a word and more a morpheme—and the language allows for a lot of information to be encoded in one character. a single character can often stand for a phrase within a sentence without sacrificing either meaning or formality. lan wangji makes ample use of this in order to express himself in the fewest syllables possible.

so this obviously leads to an incongruity when trying to translate his dialogue or capture his voice in English: shorter sentences are usually more direct by nature, and directness/certainty is often construed as rudeness -- but it might seem strange to see lan wangji’s dialogue full of longer sentences while the narration explicitly says that he uses very short sentences. so what happens is that many english fic writers extrapolated this into creating an english speech pattern for lan wangji that reads oddly. they’ll have lan wangji speak in grammatically incoherent fragments that distill his intended thought because they’re trying to recreate his succinctness. unfortunately, English doesn’t have as much freedom as Chinese does in this way, and it results in lan wangji sounding as if he has some kind of linguistic impediment and/or as if he’s being unspeakably rude in certain situations. In reality, lan wangji’s speech is perfectly polite for a young member of the gentry (though he’s still terribly rude in other ways lol). he speaks in full, and honestly, quite eloquent sentences.

hunxi’s post already has a lot of examples, but I figure I’ll do one as well focused on the specifics of this post.

I’m going to use this exchange from chapter 63 between the twin jades because I think it’s a pretty simple way to illustrate what I’m talking about:

蓝曦臣道：“你亲眼所见？”

蓝忘机道：“他亲眼所见。”

蓝曦臣道：“你相信他？”

蓝忘机道：“信。”

[...] 蓝曦臣道：“那么金光瑶呢？”

蓝忘机道：“不可信。”

my translation:

Lan Xichen said, “You saw it with your own eyes?”

Lan Wangji said, “He saw it with his own eyes.”

Lan Xichen said, “You believe him?”

Lan Wangji said, “I believe him.”

[...] Lan Xichen said, “Then what about Jin Guangyao?”

Lan Wangji said, “He cannot be believed.”

you can see how much longer the (pretty literal) english translations are! every single line of dialogue is expanded because things that can be omitted in chinese cannot be omitted in english without losing grammatical coherency. i‘ll break a few of them down:

Lan Xichen’s first line:

你 (you) 亲眼 (with one’s own eyes) 所 (literary auxiliary) 见 (met/saw)？

idk but i love this line a lot lmao. it just has such an elegant feel to me, probably because I am an uncultured rube. anyways, you see here that he expressed his full thought in five characters.

if I were to rewrite this sentence into something much less formal/much more modern, I might have it become something like this:

你是自己看见的吗？

你 (you) 是 (to be) 自己 (oneself) 看见 (see) 的 (auxiliary) 吗 (interrogative particle)？

i suspect that this construction might even be somewhat childish? I’ve replaced every single formal part of the sentence with a more colloquial one. instead of 亲眼 i’ve used 自己, instead of 所见 i’ve used 看见的 and then also added an interrogative particle at the end for good measure (吗). To translate this, I would probably go with “Did you see it yourself?”

contained in this is also an example of how one character can represent a whole concept that can also be represented with two characters: 见 vs 看见. in this example, both mean “to see”. we’ll see it again in the next example as well:

in response to lan xichen’s, “you believe him?” --> 你 (you) 相信 (believe) 他 (him)? lan wangji answers with, “信” (believe).

chinese does not do yes or no questions in the same way that english does. there is no catch-all for yes or no, though there are general affirmative (是／有) and negative (不／没) characters. there are other affirmative/negative characters, but these are the ones that I believe are the most common and also the ones that you may see in response to yes or no questions on their own. (don’t quote me on that lol)

regardless, the way you respond to a yes or no question is often by repeating the verb phrase either in affirmative or negative. so here, when lan xichen asks if lan wangji believes wei wuxian, lan wangji responds “believe”. once again, you can see that one character can stand in for a concept that may also be expressed in two characters: 信 takes the place of 相信. lan wangji could have responded with “相信” just as well, but, true to his character, he didn’t because he didn’t need to. this is still a complete sentence. lan wangji has discarded the subject (I), the object (him), and also half the verb (相), and lost no meaning whatsoever. you can’t do this in english!

and onto the last exchange:

lan xichen: 那么 (then) 金光瑶 (jin guangyao) 呢 (what about)？

lan wangji: 不可 (cannot) 信 (believe)

you can actually see the contrast between the two brothers’ speech patterns even in this. lan xichen’s question is not quite as pared down as it could be. if it were wangji’s line instead, I would expect it to read simply “金光瑶呢？” which would just be “what about jin guangyao?” 那么 isn’t necessary to convey the core thought -- it’s just as how “then what about” is different than “what about”, but “then” is not necessary to the central question. if we wanted to keep the “then” aspect, you could still cut out 么 and it would be the same meaning as well.

a FINAL example of how something can be cut down just because I think examples are helpful:

“I don’t know” is usually given as 我不知道. (this is what nie huaisang says lol) It contains subject (我) and full verb (知道). you can pare this straight down to just 不知 and it would mean the same thing in the correct context. i think most of the characters do this at least once? it sounds more literary -- i don’t know that i would ever use it in everyday speech, but the fact remains that it’s a possibility. both could be translated as “I do not know” and it would be accurate.

ANYWAYS, getting all the way back to one of your original questions: does chinese have contractions? and the answer is like... kind of...?? but not really. there’s certainly slang/dialect variants that can be used in ways that are reminiscent of english contractions. the example I’m thinking of is the character 啥 (sha2) which can be used as slang in place of 什么 (shen2 me). (which means “what”)

so for a standard sentence of, 你在做什么? (what are you doing), you could shorten down to just 做啥? and the second construction is less formal than the first, but they mean the same thing.

other slang i can think of off the top of my head: 干嘛 (gan4 ma2) is also informal slang for “what are you doing”. and i think this is a regional thing, but you can also use 搞 (gao3) and 整 (zheng3) to mean “do” as well.

so in the same way that you can replace 什么 with 啥, you can replace 做 as well to get constructions like 搞啥 (gao3 sha2) and 整啥 (zheng3 sha2).

these are all different ways to say “what are you doing” lmao, and in this case, shorter is not, in fact, more formal.

woo! we made it to the end! I hope it was informative and helpful to you anon. :D

this is where I would normally throw my ko-fi, but instead, I’m actually going to link you to this fundraising post for an old fandom friend of mine. her house burned down mid-september and they could still use help if anyone can spare it! if this post would have moved you to buy me a ko-fi, please send that money to her family instead. :) rbs are also appreciated on the post itself. (* ´▽` *)

anyways, here’s the loaf jingyeast made :3 it was very tasty.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #the untamed #the untamed meta #lan wangji #lan wangji meta #mine #mymeta #linguistics #chinese #english #cyan chinese school #cyan help desk #languages #contractions #register #look man idk how am i gonna tag this #*yeets into the void*

[grewlikefancyflowers]

Something something about WWX being kinky because of the painful and unimaginable things that have been done to his body without his consent during his first life (from the dogs in his childhood to YZY’s punishment, to whatever happened in those three months alone in the BM and being eaten alive at the end) and how he wants to give control to someone he knows will never hurt him and only wants the best for him to turn pain into something good to erase all the bad pain he’s experienced but drawing a line at spanking bc it’s the only thing no one did to him on his first life so he sees it as the only pride he was able to save 👨‍🍳💋

Hello anon, I'm very lukewarm on this take, and I don't think it really aligns with how both WWX and LWJ are presented in canon for several reasons.

First off, post-canon wangxian are having fun with their sex life !!! Why make it angsty? Why can they simply not be kinky without needing some tragic backstory or trauma to justify it?

This idea of WWX needing to reconcile or process the things he's experienced doesn't really ring to true to his character either - one of his defining traits is that he doesn't fixate on the past like that. Following on from that, out of everything WWX has experienced throughout his two lives, I would not say pain itself has much of a lasting effect on WWX. He has never been fearful of, or severely affected by pain.

Looking at the way WWX looks back on some of the painful things he's experienced, such as when he recalls the golden core transfer in Ch.103 (the whole passage is just a bit long to paste in here), he never even thinks about how painful it was.

We can also possibly see this in how he recalls YZY's treatment of him -

'But, to be honest, in all these years, I’ve never seen a second woman whose temper was as bad as Madam Yu’s. She told me to go to the ancestral hall and kneel no matter how small the matter was. Hahaha…”

But, apart from this, Madam Yu had never really done anything to harm him.' (Ch.87, exr)

It can be said that there are some other things at play here - WWX's very questionable memory, his tendency to view the Jiangs through rose tinted glasses combined with a typical instinct to remember the dead more fondly than they were in actuality. But regardless, I think WWX's focus on this tells us a lot about him, the physical pain YZY inflicted on him isn't what stays with him, but rather her temper itself, that she'd take issue with WWX over any insignificant thing, for no real reason.

WWX's comments throughout the Lotus Seed Pod extra reflect this as well. He never takes any particular note of the pain he's experienced from YZY whipping him, or the lotus lake owner beating him, instead he says

'“It’s not fair! Why do you only hit me! Why is it only me again!”'

and

'He felt his back, covered in scars both old and new, and still couldn’t hold back the question he’d be thinking about, “How awfully unfair. Why is it that I’m the only one who gets beaten up, whenever something happens?”'

Clearly what WWX takes from these experiences isn't the pain, but rather the inherent unfairness of it. So I think it's pretty far off base to suppose that WWX needs to come to terms with this pain post-canon, when it wasn't even what bothered him at the time.

The only experience that WWX seems to be affected by due to pain specifically is dogs biting him. Ironically, I guess? biting is one of the things LWJ does more than once to WWX, without his consent, before they have even established a relationship. WWX was extremely freaked out in Ch.54 when LWJ bit him, he also makes the comparison to LWJ biting him like a dog himself, and does so when LWJ bites him in Ch.93, and Ch.95.

It's a bit of a weird line to draw from 'LWJ canonically bites WWX out of nowhere without consent or negotiation, in a way that does specifically reminds him of past trauma'* to 'WX engage in pain/biting play consensually to help WWX reconcile with past trauma in a safe environment... with someone he knows would never hurt him like that without his consent.' :?

*(Before anyone accuses me of pissing on the poor, I'm not saying LWJ is ~traumatising WWX by biting him like a dog~ or anything like that. I'm just saying WX's kink progression is messy and not at all defined by any careful negotiation or consent.)

I also think this interpretation does quite a disservice to LWJ's role in their relationship. He's a character who is known for careful self restraint, but has very intense desires that he keeps hidden for much of his life. Until he and WWX get together, and WWX tells him he can 'do anything he wants to [him]' and 'don't hold back'.

A key feature of their relationship, that we see throughout MDZS, is this lack of enforced boundaries, not the careful setting of them.

Onto the part about spanking, which I guess is probably what prompted this ask...

To start with, while I do think that the it's as simple as WWX disliking it & LWJ never doing it again interpretation is completely valid, and is cute and cathartic in its own way. WWX's reaction to it is very deliberately ambiguous, to varying degrees depending on what translation you're reading. I'm using these three x x x as reference.

What is consistent is that while WWX does feel ashamed and embarrassed, he also does feel pleasure from it, enough so that he does come untouched.

Aside from that, WWX's reaction to being spanked can be compared in pretty interesting ways to his reactions to other things LWJ does to him.

For example, when LWJ bites him in Xuanwu Cave, I've bolded the parts that are particularly relevant -

'Lan WangJi glanced at him, who seemed to forget all past pain as soon as the wounds had healed. Just as Wei WuXian was about to give him a large grin, he suddenly saw Lan WangJi lower his head.

Wei WuXian wailed, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh stop!!! Stop stop stop!!!!!!”

Lan WangJi was buried into the crescent of his elbow, biting firmly into his arm. Hearing Wei WuXian, not only did he not stop, his teeth sunk deeper inside.

Wei WuXian, “Are you gonna stop?!?! I’ll kick you if you don’t! Don’t think that I won’t kick you just because you’re injured!!!!!!”

Wei WuXian, “Stop biting! Stop biting! I’ll go away! I’ll go away!!! I’ll go away, I’ll go away if you stop, I’ll go away!!!!!!”

Wei WuXian, “Lan Zhan you’re mad today!!!!!! You’re a dog!!! You’re a dog!!!!!!!! Stop biting!!!!”

When Lan WangJi had finally finished his fit and felt satisfied, Wei WuXian sprang up and scrambled to the other side of the cave, “Don’t come over!”

...

Wei WuXian glanced at the bite marks on his arm and squatted down, still shaken. Curled up in the corner, he continued to poke at the flames, not at all comprehending the situation, How could Lan Zhan do this? ... Don’t tell me that… that I’m really as annoying as Jiang Cheng makes it to be?!

Just as he was doubting himself, Lan WangJi spoke up, “Thanks.”

...

Wei WuXian was so delighted that he couldn’t help but want to move over again. He was the type of person who loved to be shoulder-to-shoulder with others, but the slight pain from the bite marks on his arm reminded him that Lan Zhan had just thrown a fit a moment ago, and maybe he’d be at it again just a moment later.

He gained control over himself at once.'

Firstly, WWX's frequent habit of 'forgetting the pain once the wound has healed' - when LWJ bites him, his reaction is severe enough that he actually does stop himself from going over to LWJ, for fear of being bitten again. Post-spankpocalypse, however - 'In the dream, Wei Wuxian’s flirting came back and hit him in the ass; but seeing this upright, self-contained Lan Wangji upon waking, he couldn’t stop himself from starting to joke around.' In response, LWJ 'swatted his ass, just enough to be playful.' (dragongirlg's tl)

So it seems that how WWX felt about being spanked was far less extreme than how he felt about being bitten...

Looking at WWX's reactions when LWJ bites him in Ch.93 and Ch.95, he is similarly not exactly pleased by it, comparing him to dogs. Both times LWJ does not stop when WWX protests.

'And one of Wei WuXian’s fingers was already caught within his mouth [...] “…” Wei WuXian, “Open your mouth.” [...] Leaning forward slightly, he moved his teeth from the first knuckle to the second. He bit down even harder. Wei WuXian, “Ow!” [...] The bite made his hair rise. Anything that bit made him think of dogs, and his hair rose whenever he thought of dogs.' (Ch.93)

'Suddenly, he exclaimed with an ‘ah.’ ... Opening his eyes, he wiped a tinge of blood from his lips as he scolded, “Lan Zhan! Why are you biting like a dog again?!” ... Lan WangJi responded with another bite. Sore from all the biting and sucking, Wei WuXian frowned.' (Ch.95)

Sooo... WWX allows LWJ to bite him after they are together, after having an initially far stronger reaction to it than he did being spanked, after LWJ simply ignores all his complaints about it!

There are also parallels between WWX's reaction being spanked and when LWJ carries him in Qinghe.

WWX's initial reservations about LWJ carrying him are because he thinks it would be shameful and embarrassing for a grown man to be carried like that. As we know, LWJ does it anyway, WWX reacts like this -

'Wei Wuxian had never expected that this was the consequence of saying “no”. In both his previous and current lifetimes, this was the first time that anyone had treated him this way. He cried out in fear, “Lan Zhan!!!”' (Ch.25, TW translation)

Which immediately makes me think of WWX's 'My whole life, no one has treated me like that!' after being spanked in Ch.119

As I've mentioned in this post before, that phrasing was added to chapter 25 during the edits of MDZS, in a scene that is otherwise largely unchanged, so I don't think it is coincidental.

So once again we have LWJ doing something to WWX without his consent, WWX expresses some almost terrified disbelief that he could be treated like that, but as with being bitten, we know that WWX ends up liking being carried by LWJ anyway.

That line is also repeated right at the end of Ch.119, with a completely different tone...

'With three nights of toil, he felt the fatigue slowly rise. Wei WuXian couldn’t keep going either. He snuggled into Lan WangJi’s arms again and mumbled, “Nobody had ever treated me like this…”

Lan WangJi stroked his hair and landed a kiss on his forehead. Shaking his head, he smiled.' (exr)

While the initial 'no one has ever treated me like this' is alarmed, the second sounds... softer, somewhat disbelieving, but almost accepting? And LWJ shakes his head fondly, something he does at other points throughout MDZS when WWX is being silly. Overall the final tone here isn't really one that fits with the idea of WWX having a boundary crossed in a way that he associates with past trauma.

Also, the version dragongirlg translated is slightly different to exr's -

'My whole life, no one has treated me like that! I’m telling you, you can do what you want, but don’t hit me! And especially don’t hit my…!”

Lan Wangji pulled him back to the couch. “I won’t hit you. Rest now.”'

Compared to exr's

'“Nobody had ever treated me like this!!! In the future you’re not allowed to this either. Really, if you wanna fuck me then do it, I’ll open my legs and let you do whatever you want—just don’t hit me!!”

Lan WangJi pulled him back onto the bed, “I will not.”'

The lack of 'in the future...' in the former tl leans more towards WWX's reaction being a purely in the moment thing. The 'I won’t hit you. Rest now' makes it sound like a less serious placation, which aligns more with the tone at the very end of the chapter.

When taking all of the above into account, I don't think, as is the case with most things in MDZS, that what happened in incense burner 2 is really as simple as a surface level reading might suggest. While WWX has secured his promise for now for LWJ to never do it again, I also think its entirely possible, or likely, that WWX will 'forget the pain as soon as the wound has healed' and tease LWJ into doing it again. In fact I firmly believe it happens.

#mdzs #50/50 whether this'll show up in the tags because of ns/fw filters #tbh when i first read ch.119 and wwx reacted like that i was like m8 are you sure??? but i accepted it. #but after rereading mdzs.... several times i have concluded that no. wwx is not sure #this is my 2000 word thesis to support the title of my blog #the thing is with wangxian is that wwx just never learns his lesson.. lwj will do something that he 'hates so much !!!' #but then wwx will just go and do the same thing to make lwj do it again.... #wwx's whole tag line when it comes to lwj is how he 'always forgets the pain as soon as the wound is healed' #just like with the silencing spell during the library punishment during the cr arc.. wwx went in there everyday knowing full well that as #soon as he opened his mouth lwj would silence him and he simply did it anyway !!!! #and is demonstrably something that wwx actually has a kink for..

[heavymetalchemist]

feel free not to reply but on the topic of character growth, i did agree somewhat w the jc stagnation meta but. my view was always that jc actually had a slight negative character arc. like i agree in terms of emotional maturity (esp around wwx - bc it's wwx's story like you said!) jc definitely doesnt change much. but like op talked about jc blaming wwx for the massacre but baby!jc doesnt do that past his initial breakdown! however, after the 13 years, he does, bc he's more lost in the anger/grief & more bitter, isolationist and sharper (i say w love). its not a huge change but its there? his emotions havent changed much but how he deals with them has, at least a bit. development, but not 'growth' you know?

however i know there is a lot of fanon that softens jc during the skip, so i can agree with op that that feels OOC (as much as i like that fanon too 😬). but also a lot of people would disagree with me here bc they'd say jc was always this bad so. you know. whatever

i do agree with you that it feels like a lot of characters haven't really changed much. (i think lwj does have an arc than you said) but! i feel like it's part of the point that we don't really see characters change onscreen. or that a lot of them don't get the chance until everything is revealed. p much all the development is off screen, either in the skip (w lwj & jgy & nhs) or post canon...

Yeah, I'd agree with that! JC has had over a decade to stew about it and I think he's a little obsessive! What he wants is an explanation, he wants to know why WWX broke his promise, and dude has a LOT of issues so it's all wrapped up with was it me, was I not good enough as well as all the trash talking that others are doing. JC thought the fight where WWX was expelled from the sect was fake, or at least fake enough that he brings Yanli in her wedding clothes to Yilling! But JC doesn't think anyone will choose him first, he has such an inferiority complex, and he really has not improved on that in the 16-year-gap. So yeah it's not really "growth" so much as like, getting really good at self-flagellation, then trying to turn that into anger at WWX, and being angry at himself for (in my opinion) still loving his brother, even after all of this. He still wants that explanation, he still wants him to come back, but he's so angry about it all! He's a mess!

I do like fanon that softens JC, especially when it leans into him being a good uncle to Jin Ling (what we see in the text supports that!) but because the book is mainly from WWX's perspective he's not going to exactly see those parts of JC during the main story - but maybe post-canon!

And yeah for your last point, that's really what caught me about the post I was referring to. There's not a lot of change in the cultivation world, there's not a lot of change in most of the characters, and while some of it is time gap I think it's also like... kind of a comment on WWX as an agent of change? The fact that he comes back and overturns everything - again! - is significant. Without this unorthodox, mad genius (who, especially in the book, is NOT a 100% good guy) the whole cultivation world kind of stagnates. The Jins repeating the power grab of the Wens is kind of a big plot point, after all (that is, the parallel between Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangshan).

#mdzs meta #obviously I do not think JC is bad #at the very least if he is Bad so is everyone #none of you are without sin! is kind of the point #but yes good point about the sort of negative arc #JC is having a bad time lol #Jiang Cheng is very miserable!

[llycaons]

ep14 (pt1): oh boy romantic montage time

wwx as a teenager is genuinely more compassionate than he's portrayed as

aw shit mention of the oath

I've often been confused by this sequence. if they showed wwx actually entering the shell instead of suddenly cutting to him inside this big red cavern, I think it would have made more sense

also I've often complained that animals don't have large rooms in their bodies like that but I just realized....oh yeah it's an ancient twisted monster. animal biology need not apply so 🤡

honestly I found this fight scene very drawn-out and uninteresting. the special effects for the fight were somewhat awkward and I was kind of bored. this was good though

wyb does 'devastated' very well

I'm kind of missing the donhua ngl. I like cql the best but the donghua was just so focused and clever and creative with the story

wwx is all kinds of fucked up after this fight....not just from his concerning readiness to die but probably also from connecting with this cursed fucking sword. he seems really out of it, and seems to be in a drowsy sort of honesty when he's like 'oh lan zhan...I didn't think I'd be able to meet you again' which is a very...nitimate thing to say? bc later when lwj gives him spiritual energy and he's a little more himself

he sees lwj all lit up and helping him and he starts complaining about how 'boring' it is. face your feelings, wwx! stop avoiding them! you think lwj is beautiful and unique and special and you like him a lot!

it's also. I feel like wwx doesn't feel like he even has the right to have an attachment outside of the jiangs? in some scenes he's really enthusiastic about himself and lwj being partners but in others he hastily denies it in order to smooth things over with jc, so jc doesn't feel abandoned. oof. we'll get to that

okay the top one is the viki and the bottom one is the youtube version which I remember! why are the translations the opposite of each other! also the youtube version is literally higher quality im so mad

god damn I love the lyrics to wuji. they almost don't matter, since they never come up after this and they're not relevant to the song's significance within the narrative, but they're perfect. it's about the struggles of a lifetime, about grief and joy, the ups and downs of being in the world, of reputation lost and gained. vague and poetic, and achingly relevant. that last line about sharing a tune together at the horizon....that's the finale, isn't it? just beautifully put together and a powerful reflection of the story itself, wwx's rise and fall and the pains and joys he's going to face. cannot believe a 16 yr old wrote that. tho if it was anyone, it would be lwj wouldn't it

lwj is ALWAYS the one leaving without saying goodbye! no wonder wwx lost faith! in this context the gusu situation is a little urgent but like. he couldn't have left a note?

I've read a few fics where they sleep together in the cave and 1. nasty and 2. that would make him just leaving after so much worse 😭 I do not endorse the first time cave sex headcanon. I still don't think it would realistically happen until ep 43. too early here, and after sunshot wwx is terrified of anyone touching him because they'll be able to tell he's lost his core. so as fun as angsty sunshot hookups are, I simply cannot see it. tho that would technically also be a factor in ep43, I don't think wwx cares as much by then if lwj knows

aw shit good job jzx

jc is yelling at wwx AGAIN and complaining about not being recognized for his efforts. my dude he just woke up from a week-long fevered sleep chill out. also can jzx stop crowding him? it's like these idiots have no idea how to treat sick people ALSO. why did jc have to run for help? they had a ton of people there. couldn't they have removed the boulders themselves? huh, maybe the wens were hanging around and all they could do was flee

wwx and ljw have such main character energy that wen chao KNEW they stayed behind to kill the false xuanwu...okay

the shidis are learning archery and jyl is just...standing there. okay! couldn't have had her like, reading or doing crafts. nope. just standing there. probably looking out for her returning brothers but like. come on

I really love that jfm personally goes to teach the little disciples. he's gentle and encouraging, and provides a reassuring and secure presence, and I'm sure his students love him. despite his flaws I'm very fond of him esp here

oh wwx, fainting again. first of many

this detail is legit so freaking cute. and wwx's warm smile upon seeing it and knowing he's home 🥰 this supports my 'wwx is a hopeless romantic' agenda. I did laugh when the donghua gave one of them huge boobs but the wx subtext in that show was so potent I can't really accuse them of straightwashing. more evidence for him being bi is all

good for you, jc

see, here he's trying to make jc feel better by calling lwj boring and jc just - lashes out. wwx tries this entire scene to deflect praise onto jc and diminish his accomplishments and to support jc and jc just treats him like shit. no wonder their relationship is so terrible later if jc treats him like this just bc he's mad. can't he see that wwx has no more control over this situation than jc does? he's just the acceptable target in jc's eyes bc jc can't be mad at his parents!

like wen chao was trying to murder mm and string up her body to attract the monster which they were going to be expected to fight without weapons. what the fuck was he supposed to do? and he's not even the one who started the fight! AND if he hadn't stayed behind, how could everyone else has escaped? I didn't see jc offering any other solutions! jesus

it sucks that jfm is implying that jc doesn't have the right temperament to lead the clan, but he's literally the only person in authority to push back against jc's treatment of wwx this arc. and he's literally right that you shouldn't speak from anger. it's not what a leader should do, it's not fair or just, it doesn't allow you to speak wisely or carefully, and it's not something that will lead anywhere good. but after this arc all jc does is lead from anger and bitterness!

it's also so twisted that wwx feels responsible for this and tries to defend jc as 'he's just mad and venting' which he says is fine here but later in the story he bitterly complains about. like I know he loves and misses LP as an adult but this entire situation was absolutely noxious for everyone involved. ppl talk about jyl being parentified but wwx felt obligated to do the same for jc as well and put aside all his own needs and emotions for jc's as soon as this shit starts up. he acts like the undeserving servant as soon as he feels like he needs to I feel dizzy

#this episode was so delicious #cql re-rewatch

[crossdressingdeath]

I really like the scene in cql where every sect are fighting for the seal bc it shows their own greed and that they didn't fight against wwx bc it was the good thing to do. unfortunately in the context of the story, the rest of the scene doesn't make a lot of sense, like I don't think wwx would do that or killing himself, also takes out lwj scene where he rescue wwx and ends fighting his own sect. Also doesn't make sense that wwx doesn't know that someone has the seal when he gave it to all the sects before dying.

It’s part of the biggest running theme in CQL: changes that look good in isolation but make zero sense when you consider little things, like... I don’t know, backstory, previous events in the show, future events in the show, characterization, themes, character dynamics... Y’know, just minor things.

#cql negativity #anon #asks

[aliceindanmeiland]

Hi....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? And why? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.

Hello! I don’t mind at all 😊

Top 5 oof ok. I have not read the novels in a good while so bare with me.

MDZ

1. Lan Wangji: Why? Bc he is lwj 😆 but in all fairness I love characters like him. I can relate to him on some level. He is such a strong and devoted character. That’s what I love about him. I could go on and on about how much I love him but I’ll leave it at that.

2. Wei Wu Xian: Once again I can relate to some of his personality. I love the fact that after all he went though he can still keep a smile and never truely change. He matured but he is still the same kind boy on the in side.

3. Jian Cheng: I love this boy so much. Most people think he is too harsh. But honestly his bark is worsts then his bite. I mean really when has he ever even raise a hand to Jing Ling even though he threatens to break his legs all the time? Lol really he is just a really hurt and lonely guy deep down.

4. Lan Sizuhi: Do I really need to explain why? He is a good boy. He his kind and super patient guys. I love that he doesn’t judge others based on what other people says.

5. Lan Xichen: He is kind hearted and really gentle. But it’s also his downfall. I love how good of a big brother he is to Lan Wangji.

Scum Villan

1. Shen Qingqiu/ Shen Yuan: What can I say other that he relateable? He is basically all us nerds 😆 I really love his gay panick a lot.

2. Lou Binghe: Little sheep turn demon king. I just wan to give him a hug. I’m both sad and glad of his character development.

3. Liu Qingge: He is like a less angry Jiang Cheng 😆 I really love how loyal he is to SQQ after he saved him.

4: Yue Qingyuan: He is a Lxc like character which I love. His story with the original SQQ gets me good.

5. Shang Qinghua: Gay crack. That’s all.

TGCF

1. Xie Lian: I think out of all of MXTX’s MC I love XL the most. He is the most relatable to me. I love his character development and no matter hardship he been though he still stay true to his morals. Even though he fail at some point he pulled himself back.

2. Hua Chang: I know you are all super shock 😆 What is there not to like about him? Yes I am a big HC stan and is not ashamed. I love his sass lol what really got me is his complete and utter devotion to XL. Even when XL had no one he still has HC even if he didn’t know it.

3. Feng Xin: He is my angry boy 😆 not much I can say other then I love characters like him. Akward tsudera. But I loyal.

4. Shi Qingxuan: I LOVE how fluid he is about his gender. He is just really funny. A bit clueless but kind.

5: He Xuan: Oh man the angst edge lord lol. His backstory is so sad. In the end he still can’t move on. I like that he is a good guy. Yea lol

Sorry some answers are shorter lol I got lazy 😆 sorry for long post in mobile so don’t know how to do read more.

#long post #mo dao zu shi #tian guan ci fu #scum villain

[downstairsbar]

not a prompt but i love your writing and i was wondering if you had any wangxian fic recs?

hi!!!! thank you so much. i will give a few, i actually don’t read too much fic :’(

soft-hearted by sarahyyy, g, wwx grows up in lan sect and it’s so sweet and tender and they are my babies... // Lan Zhan should keep kneeling. If he does, maybe Mother will forgive him and agree to see him. But he is also very concerned about how Wei Ying’s skin feels unnaturally cold. Mother would not want him to keep kneeling out here, if it meant that Wei Ying would get sick, he thinks. D:

Remembering by winwinism, e, alternate canon first time. i do like their canon first time, but this is one of the beautiful things i’ve ever read in my entire life, the writing is like.... aspirational. also perfect sexual tension?!?!?! i love this fic so much, ik hits don’t determine worth but i think this should be the most read fic in fandom. also it’s not angsty, don’t let the quote i chose fool you. // “I mourned you,” he presses on, breath ghosting over lips. “I accepted. I rebuilt. You were--my ideal,” he confesses, and something in Wei Wuxian breaks with each word. “But I moved forward.” 

oh but you're good to me by vespertineflora, e, canon au abo where wwx goes into heat in xuanwu cave. abo is a valid no, but if you’re considering, there are no consent issues! // Lan Wangji squeezed lightly, and as if the taught tension in Wei Wuxian’s body was cut with a sword, the deep, twisting pain severed itself from the arousal and dissipated. Almost instantly, flooded with relief, Wei Wuxian felt his body going lax against Lan Wangji’s side, and a soft, soothed moan passed from between his lips and into the fabric of Lan Wangji’s robes.

still waters by oh_melodie, e, cql verse. sadist lwj... it really isn’t very explicit!! it’s mostly character study, and there are so many Great lines. i believe lwj knows what he wants but i think how he reconciles his crueler tendencies/desires is always a fun study. // Wants to leave marks on the pale column of Wei Ying’s neck where everyone could see, and in places no one else is allowed to see, too; wants to press a hand over that lovely mouth to muffle his screams as Lan Wangji takes him again and again: in a bed, on hard ground, in a bathtub, over the windowsill for every passerby to stop and stare. Wants to see him wincing as they sit down to breakfast, every small movement a reminder of who Wei Ying belongs to.

teenaged by everbrighter, t, modern au. okay this is a cheat bc it’s lwj & lsz, but the specter of wwx informs a lot!!! this is like my second favorite mdzs fic ever????? the characterization of lwj here is so good, there’s so much good stuff on trauma and healing and ending generational trauma, which i think in canon is something that lwj is clearly actively working on as a father to lsz, and which is so apparent from the second we meet lsz. but of course this is a process, and this fic i think is about process. //  "A-Yuan. Language. You don't get to talk about your uncles that way.""No?" said A-Yuan, again the big-eyed, round-cheeked boy he had always been. "Great Uncle talks about you that way. Worse than. Constantly. There are never any consequences when he does it, either. We reward him: we sit there and take it, week after week."

(also cheat bc wangxian aren’t even tagged but many envies by newamsterdam, t, jc character study, is my favorite mdzs fic ever in the entire world.... it’s wwx & jc reconciliation, but also not really? it’s like...phase one of reconciliation. wwx is jc’s brother and best friend and he hates him more than anyone in the entire universe!!!!! and he loves him so much. incredible. // He would have thrown himself in front of any danger to protect him, no matter what the cost. Hadn’t he chased the Wen dogs away, even though it meant his own capture? He doesn’t want Wei Wuxian to know that, even knowing that Wei Wuxian more than repaid him in kind. He didn’t do it to be heroic. He didn’t do it for gratitude. He did it because protecting Wei Wuxian had been his job since he was a child, and it represented the surest bond in his life, the one relationship he never had to question.)

[plan-d-to-i]

It often happens to me that I come across people who say how LXC and YJL are alike. But they look at their idea of ​​ideal older siblings rather than how LCX and JYL actually behaved. Because I think they're similar, but more in how naive they are. In my opinion, these two are the true result of the hypocritical society of the MDZS universe. Not bad, but not quite good either

I don't see the LXC and YanLi comparison. They're different people. They occupy different positions. And I've often seen ppl try to dump JYL's shortcomings on LXC, and project a very weird unhappy dynamic on LXC/LWJ that is most definitely not in canon. I also find the people who draw that comparison do it so they can be like: "oh if you like LXC but not JYL that's misogyny", inevitably because they project on basic soup girl and feel attacked when ppl don't stan her.

LXC lets LWJ hide WWX in the Cloud Recesses and have him treated there when he's the most wanted person in the cultivation world. In fact, LXC hides him in his own residence. The fact that he treated JGY with courtesy when other cultivators only looked down on him bc of his parentage, speaks well of his character. How is LXC supposed to figure out what kind of person JGY is? WangXian pick up on the clues NHS left for them to piece together what happened. In his first life WWX himself had a good opinion of JGY. Because JGY is not an idiot. He's a clever, manipulative person who knows how to play human nature to his advantage. Even NMJ who caught him red handed is fooled by him again. JGY also happens to actually like LXC for real, (not romantically - MXTX's words), so ofc the face he shows LXC is that much more convincing. He hides him from the Wens. He helps him rebuild Cloud Recesses.

WWX speaks highly of LXC, and understands why he trusted JGY. During the war LXC didn't just stay to protect Cloud Recesses he went and tried to help whoever he could.

During the Sunshot Campaign, stories of praise were told about all three of the Venerated Triad. The ones of ChiFeng-Zun were about how he swept over all obstacles, leaving not even a trace of the Wen-dogs after he finished. ZeWu-Jun—Lan XiChen—however, was different from him. After the situation of the Gusu area had settled down, Lan QiRen was able to defend it with great tenacity. Thus, Lan XiChen often travelled to aid others, saving lives from danger. In all of the Sunshot Campaign, he had countless times recovered lost territory and assisted narrow escapes. This was why people were ecstatic whenever they heard his name, as though they gained a ray of hope, a powerful trump card.

He spoke up for the Wens more than jc, even though WQ and WN had never helped him. In fact the Wen Clan was responsible for the death of his father, almost killed his little brother, might very well have killed him, and burned down his home. Lan Clan doesn't owe WWX anything. If WWX's own Clan Leader declared him the enemy of the entire cultivation world after visiting the Burial Mounds what's Lan Clan going to think? Idk I just don't get these "He's a hypocrite. He's elitist. He's selfish. He only cares about himself & his ppl." takes.

He's supportive of LWJ's friendship with WWX.

He shelters WWX and investigates JGY even after there's no head to be found in the secret room.

He was worried about his little bro but still kept his calm enough to untangle the misunderstanding between WangXian.

I've seen some laughably bad "LXC is actually a bad guy >:-/" takes and they're as absurd as jc stans. Ppl just want to invent drama for their "fix it" fics lol. But there's a reason WWX ends up in the Lan Clan in canon.

#mdzs #answers #Lan Xichen #Lan Wangji #Wei Wuxian

[lansizhuis]

I know that the MLs are attached to the MCs due to their kindness to the MLs in their time of need, maybe weird is not the right word, after all it's normal to be like someone that's kind to you. I don't know how to explain how the situation with the MLs is odd so I'll guess I'll start by explaining LBH. NYY and LBH's mother showed him kindness with no ulterior motives. After the abyss, LBH could not maintain a meaningful relationship with others despite it being clear they are attached to him.

Hello! Okay, first of all please don’t apologize for “spamming” bc I’m interested in seeing other perspectives as it makes me delve deeper into the novel more haha 

On the other hand, I’m uncertain how you’re going to quantify “justified extreme devotion” because personally I feel that different individuals would have different experiences which molds how they view the world including their attachments and attitudes in this case. 

LBH admired and idolized SQQ from their very first meeting and he didn’t have that kind of reverence for NYY so from there, that’s already a big difference on how he viewed the two of them and hence, the difference on his attachment as well. Moreover, LBH wasn’t interested in his relationship (or the lack thereof) to other characters because by then, he was focused on SQQ who has become nice to him already. Kindness isn’t the sole factor for LBH but the initial reverence as well.

LWJ had always been a character of intense emotions which might not be too obvious because he’s practiced control all his life. He was mourning for WWX yes, but he was never dysfunctional even with the loss of WWX. He continued his duties and he helped people. Grieving doesn’t mean your sadness ends as in you’re not going to get affected by it anymore and you become a new person. Growth can exist despite grieving. That feeling of grief can never fully disappear but over time, it can become smaller and more manageable. That area of grief will become smaller as you function and continue your life and a purpose can expand around that emotion. Very concrete example - LWJ was a wreck when he first found out WWX’s death that the whole drunken thing and Wen mark on his chest happened. That was him at the height of his grief. But did that persist all throughout? No. He collected himself back and still became a functional member of society. His good reputation remained precisely because he had a purpose that wrapped around that grieving. 

I think that your concern isn’t really on the attachment per se but the after effect of it in your eyes wherein the MLs didn’t have close friends like the MCs. And there’s a simple reason there - they’re not interested. That disinterest isn’t just because of their attachment but their attitude as well so it’s a mixture of both. Not everyone wants to talk about their feelings to others because we each all have our own versions of healing.

#text #anon #answers