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I'm back with a drawing I did back in March, just right after finishing The Untamed

Part 2

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One of my favorite things about The Untamed is how it begins with Wei Wuxian saying ‘Lan Zhan’ and finishes with Lan Wangji saying ‘Wei Ying’

Part 1

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such a man...😩🙏

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Heaven Official’s Blessing donghua new short film OP 🦋

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Cozy and warm nights in the Jingshi

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one of my favourite moments in the books is when wen ning is trying to bow to wei wuxian and wei wuxian is not having it and bows right back because he knows wen ning will feel uncomfortable and finally give up the humbling-himself routine and i think it’s a very important part about wei wuxian’s inherent nature that he, despite everything, uplifts people.

he’s not always helping them by doing their work for them but he’s equipping them with the tools and the motivation to do better. it’s empowerment–a kind of help that lasts longer and truly benefits the person in the long term. it is exactly what he does to wen ning when they first meet: he encourages wen ning in a way that once internalised can help him be a better archer and stand taller amidst his clan. it is what he does with the clan juniors in the second life. he doesn’t solve mysteries for them, he merely shows them the tools that might help them uncover the truth. he doesn’t promise jiang cheng that he will solve his confidence issues. he simply tells him something that might change his perspective on how clan leaders are supposed to act and how breaking convention wasn’t a sign of failure. he doesn’t straight up fight jin ling’s bullies for him. instead he shows him ways he can combat his aggressors and he doesn’t enable his bad behaviour either. he doesn’t wheedle wen yuan into liking lan wangji when they first meet, instead he concocts a scenario where lwj can simply display his good nature and it works wonders because he trusts lwj to rise to the occassion. he doesn’t treat the wen remnants as if they are a fragile people: he gives them security in a corpse-ridden land and trusts them to build something habitable out of it. he helps, yes, but he never tries to be above them, or accept their servitude in exchange for something else. he’s not interested in that. he wants to see the people he cares about be their best versions. he doesn’t want wen ning to ever bow to him because they’re equals, because wei wuxian has only ever wanted to uplift him, because wei wuxian is not trying to take on their personal burdens and solve them by himself but actually trying to make them self-reliant and truly capable in their own right. in essence, he is not the friend who will help you cheat during an exam, but he will help you prepare in advance and will answer your queries and push you to study more when you have the time. mark of a true friend, indeed.

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i like that mdzs is actually not a tragedy. a tragedy would have ended at wei wuxian’s first life with no one but the antagonists getting some semblance of an happily ever after. but mdzs is unique because it gives a chance of healing and growth after the tragedy, after the heartbreak, after the soul-crushing grief. if wei wuxian had never come back to life, almost every character would have been worse off. jin ling would continue to be an angry teenager who’d become an angry adult while having authority and power he wouldn’t be able to handle. jiang cheng’s thirst for revenge would remain and worsen and become uglier and many more would fall victim to his animosity against perceived demonic cultivators. lan wangji’s mourning wouldn’t ever end. sizhui wouldn’t reunite with the man who’d he once thought of as a father and he wouldn’t reunite with his uncle and he maybe wouldn’t even learn of his true past until much much later. jgy wouldn’t be as easily exposed and lan xichen would remain blind to the wrongdoings of his sworn brother. maybe nie huaisang would still find his vengeance but it would have to be another way, a messier way. in general, the resentment of many people would continue to fester––there would be no reality checks for the cultivation clans as they did during the second siege (not that their collective shitty behaviour was corrected, but atleast there was some reckoning involved.) the history would still be the winner’s and the wronged parties would be continued to be vilified. but wei wuxian does come back and that kickstarts every single character’s journey once again. his resurrection throws a wrench into the complacency of tragedy and makes the characters hope again. i like mdzs because it is about second chances. because it doesn’t succumb to the absolute narrative of ‘why do good people always suffer?’ by giving the protagonists an ending that is not perfect but an ending that is rewarding, despite everything. i like mdzs because it is not trying to sell you a tragedy and deliberately play with your emotions but a story about hope, about betterment, about renewal. the second chance may seem like the one wei wuxian got, but in truth it is a second chance for every single character and some rightfully learn to be better and get better endings while some stick to their ways and for them, even a third or fourth chance wouldn’t be enough. i like mdzs because it tells you that yes, tragedies happen and yes they are allowed to deeply affect you but you can move on some day and you can find happiness again and you can live your life as if you were reborn, even if it’s just metaphorically.

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i am tRyINg

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© kokirapsd

※re-posted with permission ※please don’t remove the source

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Looks like we're getting an Untamed where they'll be allowed to smooch, featuring some A+ boy kissers:

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how would wwx react if, during one of his and lwj's travels, he heard rumors in the marketplace that omg did you hear sandu shengshou got married??

maybe the rumors about this spouse differ per region. in one city he married the most beautiful woman ever seen, in another he's having a scandalous affair with her brother and in yet another his alleged wife is actually a good digger, or after mysterious cultivation secrets, or a spy for the emperor.

(is he even married? who knows, and certainly not wwx!)

I don’t know what Wangxian are doing or why, but the second Wei Wuxian hears this rumor, it’s head empty, no thoughts but WHAT KIND OF CONNIVING SCHEMER HAS HER HOOKS IN JIANG CHENG? Everyone knows Jiang Cheng is too unpleasant for a woman to actually like him! This purported wife can’t be up to any good!

With every new version of the rumor, WWX’s internal mental string board is becoming more and more elaborately yarn-crossed. He’s staying up late after sex to scribble down contingency plans for dealing with a crane wife, a ghost wife, a demon wife, a femme male prostitute (“I don’t think Jiang Cheng has ever seen a woman without her clothes on, Lan Zhan, he might not be able to tell!”), a sexy assassin from the Emperor’s Court (“I’ll be honest, Lan Zhan, I thought the Emperor’s Court was just made-up, but I guess it’s real after all?”), and—just to cover all his bases—a Heavenly Immortal undergoing one mortal life as a trial so that she may know true suffering and grief when her mortal husband betrays her, or her children all die from the plague or something. (“Being married to Jiang Cheng would constitute a trial all by itself, right, Lan Zhan?” WWX says to a dead-asleep Lan Wangji who stopped finding this remotely funny two weeks ago.)

But when they finally make it back to Yunmeng to investigate, Wei Wuxian doesn’t even have time to investigate before some Jiang disciple recognizes him and bodily hauls him to Lotus Pier and plops him in front of a stressed out Jiang Cheng, who is so relieved to see him.

Jiang Cheng: Wei Wuxian? Wei Wuxian? Oh thank god, DO YOU REMEMBER THE INVOCATION OF THE SHELLED ANCESTORS? I’ve been asking around on this one, but no one knows it.

Because what’s actually happening is that it’s time to visit a shrine upriver and pay thanks to a supposedly 3000-year old turtle that blesses the Yunmeng Jiang sect. But the Jiang only do this once every fifty years and all the records got trashed during the Wen occupation and yes Jiang Fengmian tried to teach Jiang Cheng this, but he was four years old at the time and all Jiang Cheng remembers is that “the turtle in her shell is like a shy maiden under her wedding veil”, and we have to say something SPECIAL to lure her out and feed her this sacred lettuce I’ve been growing in my personal garden for seven months, Wei Wuxian! Wei Wuxian! What the fuck am I supposed to say to the sacred turtle!!!

Wei Wuxian: …..uh. um. yeah! I know this one! You have to tell her she’s prettier than her sister

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something about wei wuxian and wen qing’s relationship is so profoundly heartening and i think it’s because, in that first life, they were each other’s confidants in the sense that they voluntarily allowed the other person to see them at their most vulnerable and trust the other to take care of them. wei wuxian trusted wen qing to carry out the golden core transfer and trusted her when he was helpless on that bed, his core cut out from him. and wen qing could think of no one else but wei wuxian to help her when she was in her most dire circumstances, trusting him to help her and her family out when no one else would.

“all that pride–all gone.”

at her lowest, wen qing went to wei wuxian and allowed him to see her that way. partly because her family was so much more important than a game of saving face and partly because if there was someone who would see her in such a state and not think ill of her and continue to respect her, it was wei wuxian. because he’s also been at his worst, circumstantially, and it was exactly in those days that their initial bond/friendship was forged.

there is alot of talk about debts when wwx and the wens are concerned but i think the way they helped each other transcends the obligation of debts. of course, you simply cannot overlook who was owed what, given the setting but it’s interesting that we have this passage to make us reflect on the true nature of wei wuxian and wen qing helping each other:

when wei wuxian had bid her farewell, carrying jiang cheng on his back, wen qing had told him this: “no matter how this war ends, we do not owe each other anything from now on. our debts are cleared.” her haughtiness was clear as day in his memory. but last night, she had clutched his hand in a death grip and almost dropped to her knees as she pleaded.

“wei wuxian…wei wuxian…wei-gongzi. please help me. i have no one else to turn to. you have to help me save a-ning! i really have no one else, i can only come to you!”

it’s the way that following wen qing’s refuge of wei wuxian and jiang cheng, there was a sentiment of: oh the wens did this to you and now we, also wens, have helped you just to compensate a little. let’s settle these debts and leave them behind. and this is despite wen qing clearly stating that the wen clan’s actions do NOT reflect her own and that she’s only ever saved lives, not taken any. and yet she declares “our” debts as cleared as if she had taken some accountability anyway. it’s part that and part her attempt to obscure what her actions towards wwx and jc truly were: an unconditional show of support and help. and wei wuxian knows this and it is only reasonable and honorable to still see the help as a debt owed later down the line.

and the same thing repeats itself when wen qing comes to wei wuxian and explicitly asks for help. there is a sense that this isn’t about some give-and-take or reciprocation of prior debts. it is simply a person reaching out to someone in their most desparate times, hoping their hand will be held. and wei wuxian does hold her hand and they remain each other’s staunch supporters through the rescue and the hellish survival in the burial mounds that follows.

wei wuxian trusts wen qing with his wounds and wen qing opens up her most loved ones to wei wuxian’s care. for two people who spent their lives looking after their loved ones, shouldering massive burdens and going through the destruction of their respective clans, their intrinsic understanding of each other makes their bond so special, so grounded. they both took massive risks to help each other out and they both did what was right over what was easy to extend that help to each other.

despite my fair share of problems with the cql, i appreciated that scene with wq and jc where wen qing made it clear that she couldn’t pursue anything with jiang cheng because he wouldn’t stand by her. he simply didn’t have the guts. and this is reflected in the novel canon, in the sense, that if debts owed are the metric to measure who could have helped wen qing, jiang cheng was also on the list and he was obligated to aid her as much as, if not more than wei wuxian (and i say this because the whole reason wwx ended up staying under wen qing’s extended care was because jc was injured. he would’ve left as soon as he was discovered had he been alone). and yet wen qing doesn’t ever approach jiang cheng. her only option is wei wuxian because she knows, deep down, that he would truly help her and go to greater lengths for her than any debts would warrant. that he would understand.

and thing is, despite being the outliers of their clans, they both (+wen ning) embodied their mottos. “attempt the impossible”/“knowingly do what you know you cannot do” for the jiangs and “every kindness should be returned” for the wens (very hilarious ik) and that is just one amongst the hundreds of commonalities they shared.

and all of this doesn’t even account for the fact that they basically died for each other. if this isn’t platonic love at its best, most brutal, most beautiful, then what is?

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Oh my, thank you all so much! You’re all way too kind, and it absolutely makes my day to see how much you’re enjoying our cute little couple.

Since you seem so invested in them (and who wouldn’t be?),… special.