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one mild sentiment i see echoed around alot is that despite everything, wei wuxian failed to “save” the wen remnants, that him going to such great lengths was an effort in vain. but... no?? he did accomplish alot by taking them to the burial mounds. he gave them time. he gave them a period of peace and community life. he gave their elders a sense of togetherness. he gave them a chance to heal some of their wounds together. he prevented their slow, agonising, brutal, INDIGNIFIED deaths at the labor camps, prevented their daily suffering under the oppressive guards.

as wen qing said: they all should have died a long time ago but wei wuxian’s efforts did bear sweet fruits, however bitter the end might have been.

and here’s the thing. the wens survived through wen yuan. their legacy still remains because all the remnants and wei wuxian (and ofc lan wangji) fought to see that happen. imagine if they hadn’t, if wei wuxian wouldn’t have done anything. the wens would have seen their demise in the labor camps with nary a mention of their deaths. they would have been wiped out without ever getting the chance to say their piece or take their stance. as things went, atleast wen qing and wen ning faced their deaths bravely, as leaders of their community. atleast, wen yuan could live a fulfilling life. atleast the wen remnants had a year and more together, to enjoy some of the peace the post-war cultivation world was enjoying.

and that is what wei wuxian gave up everything for. a cause greater than himself.

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1st of 6 fanarts

Wenren E from Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know

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Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know sketches

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drew her for a new cmms sheet cuz i truly need that

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so the new dvawtk illustration huh

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(❁´◡`❁)

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it’s the way jiang cheng could not accept yanli and wei wuxian’s sacrifices, the way he could not fathom their selflessness because each of their actions were viewed by him through a very self-centric lens–in that, how does wei wuxian taking a stand for the remaining wens affect him, affect jiang cheng? how does yanli giving up her life for wei wuxian affect him, affect jiang cheng? it’s always about him, his feelings, his anger, his grief, his sense of abandonment. the problem here is that yeah, he loved his sister and yes, he did care for wei wuxian but what are these words worth when he could not allow them to make their own choices and respect those choices? what does it mean that he’d rather try to slash wen ning’s corpse and throw the wens under the bus because he doesn’t want wei wuxian to remain in the burial mounds and see what comes after? what does it mean that jiang cheng could not digest yanli’s sacrifice and never bothered to tell jin ling about the truth of his mother’s death, letting her son continue to hate the man she gave up her life for, out of love at that?

jiang cheng never respected what was most important to wei wuxian and clung to his idea of what he thought would be best for wei wuxian. thing is, if wei wuxian had backed out, had left the wens, in some impossible hypothetical universe––he would never be able to live with himself again. saving and supporting the wens was extremely important to wei wuxian. similarly, if yanli ever got a do-over, she would still save wei wuxian and give up her life because that is what she believed in, that is what her love for him compelled her to do. and in both instances, jiang cheng could not let go of his own reactionary emotions to their decisions to respect what these decisions represented.

he spit on both their sacrifices: let the lies about yanli’s death breed hatred for wei wuxian and led the siege to the burial mounds to kill the very people wei wuxian risked his life to protect. and for both these instances, the fandom has spoken ad nauseam about how it’s understandable for jiang cheng to feel abandoned, that he is always “left behind”. but did he ever have the courage to truly stick by them? stick by them, even in memory, even in their ideals, even in their last living and dying wishes?

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Gotta hard disagree with this. Lan Wangji’s righteousness doesn’t at all derive from Wei Wuxian’s death, being “naturally” rule-abiding, or from any sort of “privilege.” Lan Wangji was regarded highly by cultivation families as a teen because of his skills, yes, but he became known as Hanguang-jun amongst the people before the sunshot campaign even ended for his dedication to helping every day civilians no matter what their issues were, a trait noted to be very rare amongst cultivators who usually only nighthunted for fame or riches. He was also perfectly willing to go against rules and traditions to do what was right. Just because he normally follows his clan’s rules does not mean that he prioritizes them above morality.

On top of this, to say that Lan Wangji never publicly spoke up for Wei Wuxian ignores that he absolutely did in the story, even though we only are directly shown two instances, both in the direct aftermath of Wei Wuxian interrupting the Jin flower banquet. Wei Wuxian leaves for Qionqi Path, and as Jin Guangyao is complaining about Wei Wuxian being “too much,” Lan Wangji directly challenges his words and asks/dares him to say that Wei Wuxian is lying. Jin Guangyao concedes the point and is saved by Lan Xichen. Later, as everyone starts to slander Wei Wuxian in their retelling of the events, Lan Wangji directly calls out Jin Guangshan for spreading lies about what happened to undermine Wei Wuxian’s relationship with Jiang Cheng. Everyone is so shocked since Lan Wangji rarely speaks that it throws off the vibe until Jin Guangyao once again runs interference and is, once again, supported by Lan Xichen. After the Qionqi Path ambush when the Wen siblings turn themselves in, Lan Wangji spoke in their defense, an event we only hear about from Wen Ning afterwards. Lan Wangji speaking for Wei Wuxian (even though he did) was never going to change the outcome of the events, because Wei Wuxian was never being persecuted because people believed he was an evil guy. He was being persecuted because they didn’t like him and were choosing to spread lies to justify it. Lan Wangji’s choices don’t cancel out anyone else’s.

To say that Lan Wangji was only moved by love and didn’t actually care for Wei Wuxian’s cause also ignores many things. For instance: if Lan Wangji only cared about protecting Wei Wuxian, he would not have brought him back to Yiling post-Nightless City bloodbath and guarded him just to send him off to the Burial Mounds on his own. And lest we forget: the only reason why Lan Wangji ended up in Nightless City was because he heard that Wei Wuxian was headed in that direction and knew that a fight was imminent. Unfortunately, he appeared after the fighting began. At most before that point, Lan Wangji goes out of his way to nighthunt in Yiling to catch a glimpse of Wei Wuxian, pays for the man’s meal, helps restore Wen Ning’s consciousness, and then leaves when he sees that there is nothing more he can actually do in that moment. None of that screams “wants to imprison.”

If he wanted to imprison the other man, he had ample opportunity either during the Yiling date or after Nightless City. But Lan Wangji never wanted to imprison Wei Wuxian to begin with. His whole personal dilemma was that he wanted to be able to hide Wei Wuxian away from the people actively attempting to harm him and give him a chance to heal, but because Wei Wuxian did not want to, he didn’t know how to convince the man that he genuinely wanted to help. And he’s never given a chance to think of a way, either, because the moment he reaches out to his brother for advice, Wei Wuxian finds out about the labor camp. Wei Wuxian doesn’t even believe Lan Wangji wants to lock him away; he only says that during their reunion post- his 3-month disappearance because—just like when he starts sprouting nonsense to disgust Jiang Cheng in his second life at Dafan Mountain to make the other man let him go—he wants to provoke Lan Wangji’s anger so that he stops asking questions about what happened to him and force him to reveal something that would lead Jiang Cheng to question his Baoshan Sanren story. That’s why in Wei Wuxian’s second life, he wakes up from his coma shouting that he wants to be taken back to Gusu. He understood Lan Wangji’s intentions and only played dumb in his first life to guard the secret of the golden core transfer.

On a final note, Lan Wangji realizes before Wei Wuxian’s death that the problems Wei Wuxian was facing were not the cause of his ghost path and that the other man had no other options. Lan Wangji was there while everyone was vilifying Wei Wuxian. By the time Wei Wuxian had absconded to the Burial Mounds with the Wen remnants, it was no longer about Wei Wuxian as an individual but Wei Wuxian’s cause. That was the point of their final Yiling conversation and why it ended so peacefully. Wei Wuxian directly asks Lan Wangji if he could think of any other way for the situation to have turned out differently than the way it had with the choices Wei Wuxian made. Lan Wangji concedes the point because he knows that Wei Wuxian has been forced into impossible circumstances that neither of them had the power to change and everyone else was unwilling to.

i actually admire lan wangji's character development a lot more when i acknowledge that prior to wei wuxian's death, he isn't actually as "righteous".

teenage lan wangji is regarded highly because he is upper class, has strong cultivation, and obeys his family and society's strict expectations. his rigidity and responsibility are more guided by the idea that his duty (the "right thing") is rule-following rather than doing actual good, even against those rules.

he's not a perfect stickler for the rules. he can be stubborn and petty, but even the few times he does transgress (e.x. kneeling before the gentian house) he doesn't get very far.

anyway... even with all his manpain struggling-- maybe even because of it, and because of his own lack of political power compared to people like lan xichen or lan qiren-- young adult lan wangji was honestly pretty entitled, even with his genuinely good intentions towards wei wuxian.

instead of doing the more difficult (yet right) thing of speaking up against those persecuting wei wuxian-- calling out his elders and the other clans as wrong, unjust, unrighteous, and acting against them (see jiang clan motto "do the impossible", which wei wuxian embodied very well)-- lan wangji was constantly trying to get wei wuxian to change himself and fall in line with society's expectations to avoid dying.

true, he eventually fights 33 of his family members... but by the time nightless city even happens, once jiang yanli dies, it's far too late.

yes, resentful energy is dangerous, and yes guidao is deeply misunderstood, and yes lan wangji didn't know about the golden core transfer. but even without knowing wei wuxian has no alternative, lan wangji knew that others were incorrectly labeling wei wuxian as evil. he knew the major clans kept attacking and provoking him, and while harder to realize, he could've reasonably seen how wei wuxian's actions are always twisted to demean him as a servant's son.

lan wangji wanted wei wuxian to come back to gusu so he could keep him safe, lock him up. but what would that have even helped in the end? love is a sympathetic cause, but locking up the one you love and never truly addressing why they're in danger is a selfish sort of love that doesn't reach the heart of the issues at hand.

only after wei wuxian's death is lan wangji able to let go of that. wei wuxian owed him nothing, not even change. lan wangji intentionally, purposefully chose each and every single day for thirteen years to remember wei wuxian by embodying what the man stood for, and acting accordingly. despite his grief and pain, he truly does become a good and righteous person.

contrast that with jiang cheng's reaction after wei wuxian's death. of clinging to everything he felt wei wuxian owed him. of vocally, violently demanding retribution after wei wuxian comes back to life. how dare you, why did you, you should've, you must... cattily justifying his aggression with equal parts resentful indignation and unhealthy "love" of their imbalance, of what they used to be.

lan wangji does none of that. by the time we reach the present day storyline, lan wangji, like wei wuxian, lets the past stay past and chooses to do good. even if that means going against the grain of society and expectations. he's a phenomenal person and character. i love him so much

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Just casually thought of Shi Mei and am reminded about how much of a disgusting waste of a living being he is. Wow.

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Book of the Week: Panguan

Author: Mu Su Li (木苏里)

Genre: cultivation, horror, modern setting, danmei

Rating: M

My Synopsis: Wen Shi has been on a quest for a thousand years to find his soul, but between his strange new descendant disciple, his even stranger new renter, and all those damn cages randomly sucking him in, maybe he's on to something this go-around.

My Review: Once again a romantic banger by Mu Su Li. This couple is kinda slow burn and don't get together until the endish, but I love the intimacy between them that happens even before they get together. I am also a sucker for characters who go absolutely feral when something happens to their SO, and Wen Shi goes feral quite a few times. "Yeah this is our emotionally stable, most well put-together ancestor!" the absolute lies of this statement, and everyone who could ever dispute it is just indefinitely locked up LOL. On another, non-romance related note: I love the treatment of the dead in this story as people deserving of kindness, care, and dignity. Even when they're being terrifying, eternally-fearless Wen Shi and Xie Wen (these names were a doozy...) interact with them so thoughtfully, as the only reason why they still exist in the world is due to regrets, most of which are reasonable and sympathetic.

I have a few small content warnings that are just for genre-typical horror conventions and the main couple's dynamics. The main couple are a shizun/disciple pair who don't get together until a thousand years after having been separated from each other, with the implication being that the shizun didn't actually develop feelings for his disciple until his disciple was an adult (and also due to spoiler-territory happenings on the part of the then-adult disciple). However, the shizun does raise the disciple from early childhood, which is relevant to their closeness, so if that makes you uncomfortable, this may not be the story for you.

Translation: incomplete but currently back from hiatus; mtl exists but sucks

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idk why but there is this idea in the fandom that if someone hates/dislikes jiang cheng, it is coming from a place of “not understanding” his character or lacking empathy for his circumstances to which i say, respectfully: bullshit. and that disliking/hating jiang cheng is a needlessly miserable experience for the reader, to which i say once again: bullshit.

i can’t speak to anyone else’s experience but for me, hating jc more and more with each of his subsequent appearances in the novels was a GREAT, fantastic, very enjoyable experience because the way he was characterized was so unpleasant that if i had no snarky internal monologue directed at him, the books would be no fun when he showed up! i love to hate him and that’s a completely valid way of interacting with a character! “hating a character is easier than understanding them” is once again, bullshit, in the sense that it doesn’t account for those instances where understanding doesn’t really help in endearing a character to the audience. sometimes, you can understand the complete 1000 pages long backstory of an antagonist and still find him slimy, pathetic and despicable and that’s valid. complex doesn’t always mean likeable. liking a character doesn’t always mean liking the person the character represents.

not liking jiang cheng and criticising him should not be a shocking or offensive thing. his growth comes too little too late. he spends 13 years making himself miserable and refusing to take personal accountability and engaging in any kind of healing. at some point, the tragedies he went through stop shadowing his wrongdoings and my sympathies die down to nothingness and that’s okay. jiang cheng will literally NEVER be dear to me but he’s such a great character and such a terribly-adjusted adult that i want to be able to discuss him in a way that feels authentic to my reading experience of him. does a fan of a character always have to necessarily like the character’s personality and arc? nope. i think loudly and enthusiastically dressing him down in metas is extremely cathartic and shows an understanding of the themes of the book as much as–if not more–as more sympathetic essays about his good sides.

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Shi mingjing

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I think part of the problem is people are more obsessed with the angst that comes from the story pre-flower reveal and so just do not factor in how the flower fucks everything up since that comes after most of the fandom-fav angst moments, so they just continue to take “unreliable narrator mo ran” at face value at least in fan works. (There’s also the occasional shi mei stan out to talk about how mo ran is just naturally terrible, but they’re outliers.) Redemption arcs are common; reverse corruption arcs are a rarity. People are relying on the common as a crutch. The other part is that I think people are affected by the fact that Taxian-jun still exists post-canon and is still the asshole instead of integrating seamlessly into Mo Ran 2.0, but Taxian-jun lived 10 extra years under the flower and only just fully escaped it’s influence by the end of the main story while Mo Ran 2.0 had a 5-6 year time period to unlearn his shit.

…or maybe it’s that a lot of og 2ha readers didn’t finish the translation or understood what they read because the translation changed so many hands that they either read a bad mtl or gave up. So I suspect some may either have forgotten, not understood, or just not read about the flower reveal.

Okay so spoiler for the entire series:

I think the way Mo Ran's character development within the fandom is viewed kinda bugs me and to be fair some of it is probably due to the fact that the books are not all published in English yet so I can't really complain about that but I've also seen people who read the entire books have the same opinion.

While Mo Ran does change he also doesn't really change ? his character development is about coming back to the person he always was, not being a new kinder person. It's a circle not a straight line.

Mo Ran's story is not really about learning to a better person. It's about coming back to his self/to kindness after trauma.

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I made a meta about it once, here, but what I find most fascinating about the scene in the rain is that by Xie Lian's own stipulations, the people of Yong'an had already failed his test. The man came after the time was up and didn't even help him. Xie Lian stood up on his own and pulled the sword out on his own. The people failed every part of his test! And yet Xie Lian continued to drag his feet, directly told White No-Face to fuck off, and dragged his feet until someone did happen to come along.

I really do think the fandom underestimate Xie Lian's own values and kindness while kinda overestimating the kindness the guy who gave him the Bamboo hat in the scene in the rain.

Don't get me wrong, the Bamboo hat is important and the fact that someone went to help him is also important. But it's just the excuse. Xie Lian decided by himself to lie in the rain and gave humanity another chance first. He was trying to convince himself that he didn't believe in the kindness of people anymore while still giving them another chance. He was probably going to lie in the rain until someone, anyone gave him that kindness anyway.

The Bamboo hat is the excuse as to why Xie Lian didn't turn into Jun Wu, but the actual reason is that Xie Lian had the strength to stand in the rain and wait for someone to show him he was right. A thing Jun Wu never did.

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There's something to be said about how Mu Qing and Jun Wu both held these ideas about Xie Lian and who he really is as a person- specifically, that his kind and forgiving nature is a lie, and deep down he's actually just like them. These are ideas Mu Qing and Jun Wu spent centuries believing, refusing to be convinced otherwise until they had no other choice.

But that's where their similarities end. Because while Mu Qing resents Xie Lian for his good character, he also honestly admires him for it. Jun Wu, on the other hand, 'loves' Xie Lian, but grows angrier each time he's reminded of how different they really are. And so I think it's very fitting that when Mu Qing finally swallows his pride and admits his preconceptions and faults to Xie Lian, it's on the Heavens-Crossing Bridge, the literal wreckage of Jun Wu's hopes and dreams.

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Nope, just ended up rereading the ambush chapter lol

The worst part of the Qiongqi Path ambush isn’t even the fact that Jin Zixuan died. It’s the fact that Wei Wuxian and Wen Nong are literally discussing in the middle of Qiongqi Path how they unfairly judged Jin Zixuan’s character, how they thought the invite was a trap but the man was being unexpectedly genuine, and how much he must have grown as a person to invite someone he’s always been in contention with to his firstborn’s one month celebration simply because that person is his wife’s favorite person. Only for fuckass Jin Zixun to show up, say that actually, the invite was a trap, that they would never genuinely invite Wei Wuxian to see his shizhi, and then Jin Zixuan shows up and refuses to verify IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ACTIVE AMBUSH that he is 1) not part of the ambush and 2) did not know about the ambush beforehand. Then he died.

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Wwx didn’t need or want to talk about his trauma to jc. Wwx did not practice “demonic cultivation;” he founded the ghost path and literally nobody cared—least of all jc who directly benefited—until they realized that 1) it meant wwx was stronger than them, 2) it made wwx more popular than them amongst new cultivators, and 3) wwx wasn’t willing to be their pawn and so they couldn’t use him for their own corrupt purposes. Nobody cared that wwx didn’t use his sword, they just used it as an excuse to talk shit about him to jc, who unlike wwx is vain and cares about keeping up appearances.

Part of why wwx did not tell jc anything was because the deeper explanations wrapped around the burial mounds stint involved the loss of his golden core. Wwx also did not bother coming up with an explanation because—and I cannot stress this enough—jc did not care. Lwj was the only one who cared about any of this stuff because he cared that wwx seemingly had this massive personality and behavioral shift for “no reason,” and again, wwx couldn’t tell him anything because of the gc transfer. Not once in the post-fall era did jc show concern for wwx’s wellbeing once he got caught by the Wen except for when wwx went missing. And the moment wwx returned, jc made it about himself, because his priority was how he felt like wwx might have abandoned him, not that something had seriously happened to wwx. Wwx knew this, jc knew this. They both moved accordingly.

Wwx and jc’s relationship issues are due to jc’s self-centeredness, eternal victim complex, and needing to always be better than wwx without actually putting in any effort to be better than wwx. Instead, he attempts to force wwx down to his level, and when that didn’t work, I guess isolating and killing him did for a time.

Why does fandom act like wei wuxian kept it a secret that he was thrown into the burial mounds? He’s said it twice so far, and both times it’s been to jiang cheng (and once to lan wangji). Is this another frankencanon thing where people just can’t remember what’s been said in which adaptation vs. the novel?