#I mean wwx likes being saved in the little ways I just mean. imo there's a big difference btw protecting/supporting someone

[llycaons]

it's easy and convenient to fall into this trope, and many of my favorite fics have fallen victim to it in some way or another, but readings of wx that imply or outright state that lwj saved wwx make me want to gnaw my arm off. because I feel like that's rly insidious and simplistic and does a great disservice to both of them and is missing the point of his character and of their relationship development. as teenagers, lwj wanted to be his savior, saw him struggling and demanded that he comply with lwj's own solutions, believing his path to be correct and his own judgements about wwx's situation (and body!) to matter more than wwx's own. and that's why they clashed so much - bc wwx refused to give up his agency or his autonomy, did not want to be treated as someone to be saved

and in canon, that was never his role anyway. he couldn't, and didn't, swan in to save wwx from all of the worst things that happened to him, and his methods for behavioral control - shame, judgement, commands - were repudiated in retrospect. wwx suffered, and was alienated from his loved ones, and died a horrible, violent death, and was not saved by anyone. postcanon, lwj is committed to trusting and believing in wwx rather than trying to stop him - he's listening rather than demanding

I hate this phrase but it's actually incredibly important that lwj didn't ever save wwx 'from himself'. of course, postres he does protect wwx - from jc, from dogs, from slander - but he never inserts himself as the hero in wwx's story, and he never tries to force his own judgements and opinions on wwx again, nor claim that his actions entitle him to anything. he doesn't solve the mystery alone, he doesn't defeat the big bad, and the final get-together is never framed as a reward for his actions. he offers support, comfort, physical aid, but wwx is still very much the main character in every way, and retains all his autonomy to drive the story forward and reckon with his past on his own terms. and this is exactly why they work postcanon in a way that they wouldn't have really worked in the flashback arc

in cql, this is more immediately apparent because lwj follows wwx's lead throughout the entire arc, offering trust and aid without condition or hesitation. but even in the novel, it comes through quite poignantly in the tree scene at lotus pier. wwx thinks that it's okay that he's going to fall. he's fallen many times before, and though it's hurt, he'd survived. but still, it would be wonderful for someone to catch him. and that's exactly what lwj does

[admirableadmiranda]

Possibly an unpopular opinion.. but wwx was not a father figure for A-Yuan during their time in the burial mounds. He was more like a cool, but crazy uncle imo 🤣

Everyone be like, wwx did a good job... It was lwj who raised him 🤔 I mean, don't get me wrong.. our boy Wei did saved him twice and is so happy to have him in his life again. But lwj deserve most of the credit ✌️

Anon, I'm afraid I will have to disagree here and say that I don't agree with this take. If you are ascribing parental figures to one of them, then they both should get the credit, it’s not Wei Wuxian’s fault he was killed after only a year. I’m sure if you ask any number of people who have lost a parent young but they remember their parent being a parent while they were alive, that’s still the feeling they have now.

Yeah, Wei Wuxian plays with him a lot and teases him. That's not necessarily behavior that's only relegated to uncles. Not only does that sound pretty similar to Lan-furen playing with little Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji, but it also sounds like my dad, who definitely was a parent, just one that did his guidance through much more play related activities. There is more than one way to be a caring, good parent.

Also that being said, there are plenty of interactions and character moments that feel very parental in nature. Here he is scolding A-Yuan for eating corpse dirt:

Wei WuXian bent down and picked up the child, letting him sit on his arm, “What do you mean get him away? Can’t you talk properly? A-Yuan, why do you hug the leg of everyone you meet? Off you go! Don’t bite your nails right after you play with mud. Do you know what the mud is made of? Move your hand! Don’t touch my face either. Where’s Granny?”Wei WuXian bent down and picked up the child, letting him sit on his arm, “What do you mean get him away? Can’t you talk properly? A-Yuan, why do you hug the leg of everyone you meet? Off you go! Don’t bite your nails right after you play with mud. Do you know what the mud is made of? Move your hand! Don’t touch my face either. Where’s Granny?”

Here they are with some soup, and I double checked, Wei Wuxian is teasing A-Yuan and saying he's being a good son here. Filial piety is specifically the respect from a child to a parent or ancestor.

Wen Yuan couldn’t stop after just a few mouthfuls, yet he still knew to give the bowl to Wei WuXian, speaking as though he was presenting him with a treasure, “… Brother Xian… Xian eat.”

Wei WuXian seemed to like it a lot, “Yes, very good. So you do know what filial piety means.”

As well as A-Yuan seems to think of Wei Wuxian as a father secretly. A-Yuan gets lost in the market and while looking for Wei Wuxian, discovers and gets scared by Lan Wangji.

In the beginning, Wen Yuan was still holding onto his leg. Wei WuXian walked back and forth, picking out potatoes and bargaining. Hanging on his leg, Wen Yuan felt tired just a while later. His short arms were sore, so he let go to rest for a bit. Yet, in just a few moments, the rush of the people on the streets made him reel left and right, losing his sense of direction. His line of sight was quite low. He walked here and there, but couldn’t find Wei WuXian’s long legs and black boots. Everything in front of his eyes were pants so grimey that they were the color of dirt. He grew more and more petrified. As he spun around dizzily, he bumped into someone’s leg.

Hiding in the crowd as he heard the words ‘his dad’, Wei WuXian almost exploded with laughter. Lan WangJi immediately looked up, denying it, “I am not.”

Wen Yuan didn’t know what the people were talking about. When children were scared, they always called out to those they were close to. And so, sobbing, he called, “Dad! Dad…”

A-Yuan has not even officially met Lan Wangji yet. The narrative tells us he's scared and calling for those that they were close to. The only person who could hear him is Wei Wuxian. He calls him "A-die".

Wei Wuxian’s parenting is definitely a lot more unorthodox than most parenting we see, but let’s keep in mind that he is twenty-one at the most at the time. He is a very young man who is putting himself in the position of caring for a child in a hellistic time on earth. His main goal is to make sure that A-Yuan grows up feeling happy and cared for without ever worrying about their situation. He can’t erase all of it, but he can sure as hell make sure that A-Yuan never feels like everyone’s miserable. A-Yuan also seems to be the only child in the camps, who else does he have to play with?

The relationship between the three of them is interesting because there is no singular term that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji use for Sizhui, nor does Sizhui quite define them in one particular relationship. He calls Wei Wuxian “Xian-gege” most of the time, but also “A-Die” once when he’s scared. He describes Lan Wangji as being like a “father and brother” to him. The two men clearly both take pride and interest in his upbringing and even take him out on special trips alone with just the two of them.

If you conclude that Lan Wangji feels more like a parent to Lan Sizhui, keep in mind that they both give Sizhui the same sense of safety. He connects the two with the same emotion.

Wei WuXian turned to him, “SiZhui, you’re the most sensible one here. Guide them a bit, won’t you? Can you do that?”

Lan SiZhui nodded. Wei WuXian added, “Don’t be scared.”

Lan SiZhui, “I am not.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Lan SiZhui smiled, “Senior, you are so much like HanGuang-Jun.”

Wei WuXian was puzzled, “Us? How are we alike?” They were obviously like fire and ice. However, Lan SiZhui only grinned in reply, and led the rest of the group out.

He continued his thought silently, I do not know, either, but they just feel similar. It is as though if either one of the two seniors are present, I will not need to be scared or worry about anything.

And both of Wangxian conclude that they are both responsible for how he turned out, as well as the same soft look in their eyes.

At least, Lan SiZhui couldn’t hold it any longer. With a loud cry, he leaped up. One hand around Wei WuXian and the other around Lan WangJi, he pulled the two into a tight embrace. Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi bumped into each other from the hug. Both of them were surprised.

Lan SiZhui buried his head between their shoulders, “HanGuang-Jun, Senior Wei, I… I…”

Hearing his muffled voice, Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi exchanged a look, only inches apart. They both saw something soft within each other’s eyes.

Wei WuXian fixed his mood and put his hand on Lan SiZhui’s back, patting, “Enough, what are you crying for?”

Lan SiZhui, “Not crying… Just… I suddenly feel so frustrated, but so happy as well… I do not know how to describe it…”

After some silence, Lan WangJi laid his hand onto his back as well and patted. Lan WangJi, “There is no need to describe it then.”

Wei WuXian, “That’s right.”

Lan SiZhui didn’t say anything. He hugged them even tighter.

Soon, Wei WuXian exclaimed, “Hey, hey, hey, why are your arms so strong? Definitely deserving of HanGuang-Jun’s teachings…”

Lan WangJi glanced at him, “You taught him as well.”

Wei WuXian, “No wonder he grew up so nicely.”

There is no single defined relationship, but it is clearly close, affectionate and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji definitely have a mentor/parental interest in his life and take a close hand in guiding him on the road to adulthood. However the thing that is clear is that Wangxian both share the same feelings and give Sizhui the same emotions. If one is an uncle, both are. If one is a parent, both are. 

Also again, I think it’s super unfair to blame Wei Wuxian for not being involved in A-Yuan’s upbringing while he was dead, especially since every time Wei Wuxian thinks of Sizhui, Sizhui keeps making him proud and thinking of how good a child he is. Lan Wangji also clearly is raising Sizhui to be aware of Wei Wuxian as he was and to when he is ready, know the other family that he lost.

If Wangxian were together and Wei Wuxian still died young, would you say that Lan Wangji still deserves all the credit? It’s not like Wei Wuxian walked out or chose not to be involved. He died. Of course Lan Wangji has put in the more time, but that’s not something either of them ever wanted.

So yeah, it probably is kind of an unpopular opinion. And not one I particularly agree with either. Sorry!

[sneakydraws]

Well, here it is - a lengthy explanation of each card in my mdzs major arcana deck and what I meant to convey/what i would have changed in retrospect/what alternatives i considered! It’s a bit messy and my typing style is lazy but hopefully it will be an interesting read to some of you :)

And so you don’t say I didn’t warn you - jiang cheng’s section (11 justice) is absurdly long lmao

0 the fool  I elaborated on this in the post itself but yeah basically jin ling is kind of representative of all the damage and trauma caused by the past, and there’s a kind of danger there of him falling victim to the same vices as the older characters and repeating the same mistakes and perpetuating the cycle of war and misery (the cycle that we already see with how the jin sect became the new wen sect, and later with how jgy became the new wwx) and he has a lot of room to grow! He grows so much over the course of the novel, comes to realise the complexities of the past and gets a harsh life lesson in how nothing is as black and white as it seems. But ill save talking about his progress for the end, for now whats important is that he has room to grow and also a dog. I don’t really have a justification for the sun, i mostly just thought it looked sick? It made its way to the next card as well, where it makes a bit more sense, but then i realised it was a dumb motif to include 1 the magician I still very much like wwx for the role, and that illustration would have probably had him raising a corpse on his left and pointing threateningly to the sun on his right. I considered including the table as well, with some mdzs relevant items replacing the card suits. Anyway, like i said wwx got a few cards to himself already so i went with the alternative wq design, since i think she fits the card as well. Both she and wwx are highly skilled people, extremely driven once they set their mind to something. The card to me symbolises the creative mind as well as a general drive for action, which fits them both - wwx was famously a prolific inventor, and wq came up with a previously unheard of surgery, after all. This card strays pretty far from the rider-waite deck design, largely because i was still figuring out how i wanted to approach this series, but you can still see the influence. 2 the high priestess I was actually going to skip this card at first because I couldn’t think of a fitting character, but once i considered a qings character post death, it all fit pretty well. She was already a highly intuitive person in life, and in sharing her memories with wwx she is, in a way, relaying a kind of secret knowledge. Anyway she’s one of my fav characters so im glad i got a chance to include her. The coffins could be interpreted to be xxc and sl or xxc and xy 3 the empress Theres other mother figures in mdzs who got to be mothers for a longer time, but jyl definitely embodies the positive aspects of this card the best. She’s nurturing, kind, emotionally supportive, she already mothered wwx and jc quite a bit when she was young. Plus i liked that the rw card had both water and flowers, making an easy lotus connection. In retrospect the stars look kind of out of place and i should have replaced them with something more relevant... Also, i should have had her hold a lotus seed pod instead of a flower, haha 4 the emperor Like i said I considered jc for the role but hoching bullied me into admitting that nmj was better… they’re both more of an inverted emperor than an upright one but then again theres hardly any character in mdzs who would fit upright emperor so. Jgs was also considered but he’s even uglier than nmj so i couldn’t bear to draw him 5 the hierophant It was pointed out to me that lqr would have fit this card better and the truth if that statement haunts me to this day. Unfortunately I have no space in my brain for lqr so lxc got the role instead. My main reason was his role during the wen destruction of gusu lan, when he ran away with the contents of the library - this is why there’s bookshelves behind him. The keys, take, from the rider-waite deck, are meant to represent the gusu pendants that allow you to enter 6 the lovers Im sure many people would have chosen wangxian here but I uhh don’t really care abt wangxian personally? And also their love story is so convoluted that jyl and jzx seem idyllic by comparison lol. Also i didnt really have an idea for who to put in the angel’s place for wangxian… mme jin certainly did not get these two together in the end but undeniably she and mme yu did initially give them a chance to fall for each other so. Thats something i guess. Anyway the trees became their sects’ flowers and the mountain became the burial grounds - an omen of their tragic fate, basically 7 the chariot There might have been other characters who fit this card better but i couldn’t really think of another card for lwj and i thought it would be weird to not include him… anyway i don’t really care for current timeline lwj BUT i do like that he was clearly influenced by wwx to walk his own path in life based on his moral convictions rather than follow his sect’s rules blindly. The chariot is to me a card of self control, self determination and focused action, so it seemed fitting. The composition felt kind of empty without the actual chariot so i padded it out with the guqin, the cloud recess in the bg (it doesn’t look great but i tried to replicate the drama design….) and the bunnies which conveniently fit the colour scheme of the sphinxes in the rider-waite design 8 strength Like i said before, my interpretation of this card is more… morally ambiguous than the quote unquote official meaning, so i thought about manipulative or duplicitous characters more than kind characters whose strength is expressed through gentleness (though i did consider jyl briefly for the latter interpretation). As such, i considered both jgy and nhs, but ended up going with jgy largely because i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put the nie sect’s beast as the lion. 9 the hermit My thoughts immediately went to bssr lol. It may be an overly literal interpretation but whatever, i like it just fine. And i like that i managed to echo the rider-waite silhouette in the mountain and the tree (and even in bssr herself) 10 wheel of fortune God i love the parallels between these 2… this card to me is about how you cant trust your current situation, good or bad, to last forever, and these 2 embody that perfectly imo. Wwx went from son of a well off servant and a powerful cultivator, to street rat orphan, to adopted son of sect leader jiang, to double orphan, to MIA, to terrifying but admired warrior, to terrifying and despised traitor, to dead, to, at the very end, suddenly respected and trusted again. The dishonesty and cheapness of whatever the public’s current opinion of him is is portrayed beautifully as far as im concerned. And jgy of course claws his way up to power only to instantaneously become public enemy number one, to the point that he’s probably blamed for stuff there’s no reason to believe he had a hand in. Wei wuxian’s silent astonishment at how quickly the cultivation world turns against jgy and towards him again is a delicious moment of thematic resonance.  11 justice I settled on this card for jc after he got booted from the emperor seat but i do think it fits, in a somewhat convoluted way. I turned both the sword and the scales into visual representations of the golden core transfer (can you tell im obsessed with it). According to biddy tarot, the justice card is partly about searching for the truth, and the scene where jc finds out about the transfer is of course a big deal. I was also very influenced by the reversed meaning again - which is about being reluctant or unwilling to face or accept the consequences of your actions. I feel on an intuitive level that this fits jc but I’m not sure how well i can explain it - it’s something about how he’s a little too comfortable scapegoating wwx for things that were also, if much less so, influenced by his actions, and also something about the way he keeps wwx at an arm’s length emotionally but still leans on him and accepts his support when he really needs it, and somewhat hypocritically expects wwx to put the needs of him and the jiang sect before the needs of others. And also something about the core exchange is the consequence and proof of wwx’s deep - terrifyingly deep, even - love and care for him, which is something jc doesn’t seem to let himself acknowledge. Maybe even something about how you could argue that the way all of the jiangs acted around wwx - jfm’s favouritism that left him with the feeling of a debt he needs to repay, mme yus insistence that he be a servant more than a brother to jc, prepared to give his life for jc, and jc’s own unwillingness - or inability, he was a child after all - to clearly acknowledge wwx as an equal to himself, enabling wwx’s self sacrificial and protective tendencies - that all of this was what caused wwx’s complete and unquestioning willingness to do whatever it took to protect jc, and therefore paved the way to the golden core transfer. And i don’t mean this to be scapegoating jc - especially considering how young he was when this all went down, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this level of emotional perceptiveness, awareness and maturity of him - but i think adult jc has to grapple with the fact that the chain of cause and effect was not as simple as wwx fucking everyone’s lives up to be a martyr, and that both jc and his parents had a role in that story as well. I don’t even necessarily think this is something that jc only realised in the current timeline - i think it’s something he felt on some level this whole time, and it probably led to a lot of feelings of guilt - but the suibian reveal definitely puts it in sharp focus, and i think he’s now better equipped to handle this introspection than he was as a recently orphaned, traumatised teenager, lol. ANYWAY the window with the fabric is both a nod to the rider-waite design and a reference to the destruction of lanling - i actually did some basic ass research for this, and it seems that in ancient china fabric would indeed be hanged in a window if the normally used paper was damaged. The design of the window, as well as the very idea to use it to imply the reconstruction of lanling, was taken from this great piece of jc angst by my pal moroll1! Oh yeah also the covered window kind of works as a denial of forgiveness for jc because it’s like a halo but covered up... Also I completely forgot to put a blindfold over his eyes which would be perfectttt because blind justice and the core exchange......... ok moving on 12 the hanged man I always have issues with this card because i cant find a satisfactory summary of what it’s really about. Best i can tell it symbolises a need to hit pause, surrender or let go of something… ive also seen it tied to sacrifice? So mo xuanyu doesn’t fit perfectly, but sacrifice is definitely there in a surface level reading kind of way, and the idea that you have to surrender or let go in order to achieve your goal does fit the whole deal of getting revenge but giving up your life in exchange and not being there to see it 13 death This is probably one of my favourite cards, definitely not because I have huge issues with change or anything…. I see this card as signalling the necessity of change or putting an end to something / leaving something in the past in order to start anew? At first i considered putting past wwx, mxy and current wwx here as a kind of transformation and one cycle flowing into the next... But firstly, I’d already used mxy in the very previous card, so putting him in again would feel like overkill, and secondly, the longer I thought about it the less convinced I was that this would even fit with the card’s meaning? Because coming back from the dead doesn’t like... trigger an internal transformation within wwx or anything? Anyway, fun fact: the design I ended up going with was actually originally intended for judgement! I thought I was being very clever with the whole “figure plays an instrument and the dead rise” parallel, but apparently I’d just completely forgotten that the judgement card had a completely different composition... Truly I was boo boo the fool... But yeah anyway at the end of the day I figured the design would kind of work for death as well, with Wen Ning and the theme of transformation, (since in his case coming back as a fierce corpse does actually mark a certain transformation in behaviour) and Wei Wuxian’s protection of the Wen people essentially signifying an attempt to break the cycle of oppression if that makes any sense? Like, wwx is trying to revolutionise the way the world works a bit, if you catch my drift 14 temperance  The centrist card! Again this is probably going off track from the “official” interpretation, but to me this card has a certain “don’t commit fully; do everything in moderation; don’t take either side” flavour to it that i personally find infuriating irl and that i very much assign to lxc. It’s entirely possible that I’m misinterpreting his character because i didn’t really pay him (and the 3zun in general) much mind while reading, but hell, I’m allowed to pick favourites and choose who i want to interpret deeply vs shallowly. Again, i wish id chosen lqr for hierophant because its so annoying for a character i don’t care about to get two cards…. But oh well 15 the devil My alternative idea for this was jgy as the devil and lxc plus nmj as the figures, but since all three had been featured already (multiple times, even!) i figured I’d go with xy instead, especially since he’s among my faves lol. I think the devil signifies something along the lines of unhealthy attachment, obsession or addiction, which isn’t 100% accurate in the case of xxc and a-qing, but if i stretch it a bit to cover toxic relationships in general, and especially manipulation or negative influence, i don’t think it’s half bad. My main struggle here was to choose who amongst the xxc/sl/aq trio to choose for the human figures. 16 the tower Arguably jin zixuans death and the following massacre of nightless city were the final and most direct reason for the siege of burial mounds, and the tiger seal is good shorthand for wwx’s loss of control over his powers, which led to the deaths of jzx and jyl. When reimagining major arcana i like to feature some kind of building in this card (spoilers for a possible future project but in my rose of versailles major arcana set the tower is bastille) and even if it’s not a tower, the image of wwx looming over the gathered crowd from atop a rooftop is so good i couldn’t resist 17 the star Struggled with this one - considered both jin ling and lsz for it, as symbolising a hope for the future, but that was kind of covered by the world so it wouldn’t make sense to include here as well... As usual when I struggle with interpreting a card (as opposed to understanding it but struggling with matching a character to it, like with death or moon) I went to biddy tarot and read all the details about its meaning. What i got was that this card signifies an incoming period of introspection and inner peace following a time of turmoil, as well as a general moving on into a new, better phase of one’s life or finding new meaning and purpose. The figure also suggests someone vulnerable, but possessing a keen sense of intuition as well as a good degree of practicality and common sense. Given all those, I settled for mianmian because IM LOVE HER..... I also kind of see her as a prelude to the “just one person is enough” theme present in tgcf!! And i think her decision to abandon her sect because she saw the toxicity and corruption in it is a very inspiring action - even if it didn’t make a large visible impact, i think the appearance of her and her idyllic family at the very end of the novel - paralleling and mirroring wangxian - implies that at the end of the day, it was a meaningful one 18 the moon Another card i ALWAYS fuxking struggle with - this time less because i can’t grasp its meaning and more because I can never find a character that fits it well. I usually get fixated on the “dreams and subconscious” part, but if i lean more on the “disguise, deceit, anxiety and fear” part, i eventually figured the whole yi city arc wouldn’t be a bad fit. I say the entire arc because it really does encompass all those themes if you include both the past and the present - xue yang’s disguise, his tricks with the villagers, a-qing’s lies and even xxc’s reluctance to talk about his past as well as xue yang pretending to be xxc all fit the disguise and deceit angle, and the general mystery and creepiness of the current timeline yi city work well with the anxiety and fear - the mist, the slow uncovering of the past, even a-qing being revealed to be an ally after scaring the shit out of the protags. I definitely struggled with including all the elements and characters, and even moreso with making them vaguely fit the rider-waite composition, but i think it ended up okay ish. OH and i completely forgot to draw mist swirling around them :( 19 the sun I was considering mianmian’s family for this one, but since I used her for star, I ended up with wwx and his parents instead. Once again I’m reinterpreting the card a bit - normally I think it symbolises incoming times of pure happiness and abundance, as well as a connection with the inner child, but I gave it more of a nostalgic or sentimental twist - wwx looking back at the brief glimpse of his happy childhood. 20 judgement another card that i struggle to interpret a bit... Here i actually used the tgcf tarot zine as a reference! In it judgement is summarised as “rebirth, following duty, absolution” SO i figured that nhs, mxy and wwx all together would fit pretty neatly... wwx achieving (public) absolution through clearing his own name after being reborn, and nhs sort of calling on wwx to expose jgy’s crimes... It’s a bit messy but not bad I think! 21 the world This ties very closely to my read on mdzs as a story - which is that it’s, at the end of the day, largely about cycles, and about how hard it is to break them, but how we gotta keep trying and have hope anyway. Or maybe more precisely, that the people directly involved with and influenced by the trauma of the past might not be able to get over said trauma and that the hope for healing from it will be shouldered by the new generation. Or something like that… Basically what i mean is that jc and wwx and lwj and lxc and nhs and jgy and all these people who were in the thick of the sunshot campaign and the siege are so profoundly affected by it that it genuinely feels by the end of the story like there is little hope for them to ever truly overcome that trauma and build a better future without repeating the same old mistakes - but there is a glimmer of hope in the new generation, specifically in jl and lsz. And it’s a bit paradoxical, because they have also been directly impacted by the past tragedies - lsz having his entire clan wiped out after wwx failed to protect them, jl losing both his parents to wwx’s mistakes - but despite that loss, and despite coming from arguably the two opposing sides of the past conflicts, they are both, in the end, capable of moving past that tragedy, of recognising the complicated nature of those conflicts (jl’s moment of clarity at the end is both heartbreaking and hopeful) and forging friendships between clans in the process. I honestly think that the extra where jl is struggling to assert his authority as sect leader, to treat his subjects well and to cooperate with other sects in a truly amicable way is the single hopeful ending note for the larger themes of the novel - it allows us to imagine that maybe these kids can learn from the mistakes of their elders rather than getting sucked in by resentment at those mistakes, and actually build a brighter future for the cultivation world. And sidenote, this is also why i have a soft spot for jin ling and lan sizhui as a ship... speaking of which their poses were directly referenced from the lovers card ehehe

Looking back, I’d like to add some symbol of jin ling’s trauma so that it mirrors baby wen yuan in the tree stump... maybe his father’s sword? 

[inessencedevided]

The Untamed, episode 23 - watching notes

I can't believe it took me so long to watch the next episode. Somehow with all this staying at home, I still don't have time

I'm still scared and horny for wwx

"I've been dead once. We, of course came from hell"

This is news to me!

Did he die on burial mounts??? Or is it a figurative death?

Both kinds fit, though. He seems really distant right now. Like he really isn't completely present among the living

The ... hell?

He says "stygian tiger amulet" like I'm supposed to know what he's talking about but I have no idea!

Everyone is so completely out of their depth that they are literally just spectators at this point

Who just killed ...?

Okay, I stand corrected. Everyone is too shocked to move, except for lwj, who is not going to let anything stop him from catching his boyfriend :D

Wtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtf???

What's Meng Yao's deal???

I love Lan Xichen with all my heart, but when he looked into the distance and said "The sun is finally setting down" all I could think was "Thanks Legolas!" Because that was really very legolas of him

Nie Mingjue ... don't die 😥

Ooh, so Meng Yao was a spy!

This whole story of how Meng Yao saved Lan Xichen's life and then wrote letters to him, as a spy, in secrecy is a shipper's dream!

I just noticed something about the netflix subtitles. I'm pretty sure they just let Jiang Yanli call wwx "Wei Wuxian, when she said A-Xian and wwx call her "Yanli" when I'm pretty sure I heard "shijie"

Three days. I'm glad they're making it very clear just how much if a toll his new way of cultivating is taking on his body

Have we seen the Jin clan leader before at all? I don't think so

It breaks and warms my heart at the same moment how afraid wwx is of Shijie's judgement. Honestly, he seemed the most like himself around her and this is one more instant where, for a brief moment, he looks like a little boy again.

"Why do you keep mentioning second young master Lan all the time?" Because she KNOWS! :D

He came every day and played his guqin!

And there he is! 😭😭😭

His expression when he sees that wwx is awake. I'm melting!

That whole scene if lwj playing for wwx ... 💖💖💖

At least we isn't trying to actively push lwj away anymore

I just remembered that we did meet the Jin clan leader before. All the way back in cloud recess

So much is happening right now, it's hard to follow, so I'm just going to try and make sense of it by writing it down: the Jin clan leader arrived late and now wants to tell everyone what to do: mainly , round up an kill the remaining wen clan, even those that are defenseless or didn't do anything. Also, he wants to question anyone who suspicious, which I take means wwx at this point. Ah yes, and also, he will take in Meng Yao and legitimize him as his son.

Now, that's a transformation! 😳

I gotta ask: what's up with the hat?

And he even gets reintroduced. Oh man! Someone else I have to remember two names for! 😭

Jin Guangyao ...

How much of his rise to that position was planned? How much could he plan, really?

But him and Lan Xicheng still give me all the feels! That callback to their first meeting, when Lan Xicheng wouldn't let him bow to him because he considers them equals! 😭

Holy shit! that's a lot of blood!!!!

I have a whole lot of feelings about this conversation between wwx and lwj. From how beautifully it was shot (but let'sface it, any shot of these two is drop-dead gorgeous!), to the brilliant progression of the score that got progressively sadder to ... basically everything they said. Lwj's primary concern seems to be to protect wwx from the repercussions of demonic cultivation, while wwx does not seem to spare much thought to his own wellbeing at all. He is obviously not fine and he mostly ignores it.

It is remarkable, imo, that his primary concern seems to be the moral dilemma he finds himself in. Just the fact that he is able to tackle it at all is astonishing! Not only does he not automatically transfer his thirst for revenge against Wen Ruhoan and his son to the rest of the Wen clan, he seems to be the most concerned with sparing the innocent who just happened to be born in the wrong clan.

He's such a fascinating character!

I had to Google "absterge", btw. I'm not a native English speaker, but it's rare these days that I haven't even heard a word before. So apparently it's similar to "cleanse".

I will definitely have to rewatch that tortoise episode btw. I think I remember that something happened inside that shell, but I do not know when in earth wwx should have had time to start forging the tiger amulet there

The angst!!! 😭😭😭

Waitwaiwaitwait! Isn't this also the cliff wwx will eventually fall from??? 😳

All the angst!!!

Hey, Jin soldiers? You're barely better than the people you fought right now 😒

He was about to shoot a mother running with her child in her arms ....

I have a feeling that the pledge that Nie Mingjue, Jan Xichen and Jin Guangyao make is another example of a scene where I don't understand the full context because I'm so unfamiliar with the culture

Jiang Cheng being flanked by Jiang Yanli and wei Wuxian in his first official appearance as sect leader gives me so many feelings 🥺

Every interaction between nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao is soooooo uncomfortable at this point

Why does this banquet give me red wedding vibes ... something terrible is about to happen, I can feel it

With all of these etiquette rules being on display, I'm wondering, how much they lend from various chinese traditions and how much is just made up to suit this particular fantasy world. I'm ashamed to say I honestly don't know :/

Ohhh, the marriage is back on. Great... not

Granted, Jin Zixuan isn't a complete idiot anymore

Oh God, Wei Wuxian. What are you going to do? 🙈

@sweetlittlevampire @fandom-glazed @elenirlachlagos @allhailthedramallama @luckymoony 💖

[zhuhongs]

Here’s my long ass review of TGCF that literally no one asked for it i have opinions and I have no one to tell them too so i must write them out and post them. (also part of this is abt the mdzs novel bc i can’t not compare them and I have a lot of thoughts abt that too)

This is very very long so it’s going under a read more. Spoilers ahead!!

Okay so first off this book was a fucking behemoth i can’t believe i read all of that (minus the extras) in under a week.. what the fuck. I definetly got reading fatigue halfway thru book 3.

I’m gonna separate my thoughts into sections bc i  have a few points that don’t all relate

firstly, overall writing and organization:

I said it earlier but tgcf is a lot more structurally sound than mdzs imo. My biggest criticism of the MDZS novel (minus the bad sex scenes, homophobia, and general I hate mxtxness of it) was the way the flashbacks were presented. 

Like OH MY GOD they were presented so badly. I hated that the flashback was told intermittently and only when one of the characters invoked the past. For example, when WWX meets Jiang Cheng and a second time, Jin Ling distracts JC to release “Mo Xuanyu” bc he saved his life in the Nie Ancestral hall earlier. WWX then proceeds to be the self sacrificing dude he is and take away Jin Ling’s curse and put it on himself. When he escapes and returns to LWJ, LWJ offers to carry him.

 If you watched CQL, you know exactly what LWJ is referring to when he says smth to the effect of “You once offered to carry me too, remember.” HOWEVER in the novel you don’t know what he’s talking about. This is because the flashback wasn’t been revealed to you yet. The next chapter goes to tell the flashback. I think that this takes away all of the emotional depth away from the scene. But in CQL, having the flashback already be known, you make the connection on your own and are like “awww wangji remembers that.. even 16 years later.“ Its a lot sweeter bc you know what the two have gone thru. At this point in the MDZS novel its barely the 30th chapter or so and you have no real idea what wangxian have been thru together or what reasons wangji has for loving wwx. You just think, well obviously they like each other bc this is a danmei novel and they are the two leads, ofc they have to like each other. But in cql, you learn through watching them that they’re in love. It’s not just like”well they have to be!! its a bl!!”

Okay that was a rlly long side tangent but it makes me so angry. So what did any of that have to do with TGCF?? well tgcf doesn’t have this issue. In fact, i believe that it gains a lot from having the flashback withheld from the reader. 

I really liked how the flashbacks were contained to books 2 and 4 respectively because it adds a layer of mystery. Hua Cheng is a very secretive man so it makes sense for us to not know everything about him upfront. The way that the author teases and hints little things at you make you want to know more, making it all the more satisfying when the truth is revealed. Because in a way you Know that Hua Cheng meets Xie Lian before and you know that he’s the child XL saved during the God Pleasing Ceremony but you don’t know all the details. Like obviously since Hua Cheng is a ghost you know that he’s died and it was likely for Xie Lian or Xian le’s sake but you probably never expected that he actually died twice. Once on the battle field and second when he took the human face disease. I think the difference between these flashbacks and the flashbacks in MDZS result from the length. In TGCF you get two long concise flashbacks that make sense to be placed where they are. Book 2 because you already have a feel and hint at what the characters have been through and book 4 because the White No Face appears again so then you learn how he and Xie Lian met before. It wouldn’t make sense to place book 2 any earlier bc there is no emotional impact. And it doesn’t make sense to place book 4 earlier because you don’t know what the white no face’s deal is so it’d be confusing. In MDZS, you get numerous short flashbacks happening alongside the main story and it makes it hard to piece together the timeline in a way that feels satisfying. Ik a lot of ppl grill cql for having a confusing intro episode and having a rlly long flashback but its much better than the mdzs novel. However the mdzs donghua handles the flashback in the most concise way imo.

Overall i think the way the story is structured is very good and is a step up from mdzs. Also the horror aspects of tgcf are rlly enjoyable and honestly i think mxtx should just write short horror stories at this point. like enough long ass novels chock full of fetishization. just write some fun horror with no romance and call it a day.. pls

Side Characters:

okay so straight up, i think the side characters arent used as well as they were in mdzs bc mxtx wanted to focus on hualian and didn’t want to give the side characters as much focus. This is a weaker point of the novel.

I’ll get into it more below but i think hua cheng was done dirty as a character by having him rlly only care abt xie lian. Since he doesn;t have any real relationships with others outside of xie lian this takes away from having more depth in the side characters. They’re really only related as far as xie lian’s relationship with them. Though thankfully xie lian gets rather close with a few officials and the ones we get to see more of are rlly interesting. I especially loved the reconciliation of mu qing, feng xin, and xie lian at the end of book 5. honestly their relationship was one my favorites and i’m glad they finally said what they had to say to each other after 800 fucking years. Also Shi Qingxuan is a delight. we stan sqx in this house.

The characters i wish we had seen more of were yushi huang (although she didnt rlly want to be there, good for her), Quan Yizhen and Yin Yu. I very much wish yizhen and yin yus story happened earlier on and we had more time with them. It felt strange to have their subplot occur towards the end and it was sort of out of place but i liked them a lot!! i wish there was more to it. and that there was a reconcilation but mxtx hates happy shidi’s doesnt she, (glares at novel jc). Also man yin yu did NOT have to die like that i’m sad.

Also, honestly.. i don’t think qi rong added to the story whatsoever and i have no clue why he and guzi were there. qi rong just pissed me off the whole time and added literally nothing.

going back to yushi huang, i’d like to say for the millionth time that i hate how mxtx uses any of her female characters. like we get it.. u hate women being useful... im still pressed but what i want to say has been said many times before so ill leave it at that.

Hualian:

I really really did like hualian at the end. They had a truly epic love story and it was so beautiful, especially when hua cheng repeated his words as wuming to xie lian as he started to disappear. But, I said it once and i’ll say it again. I don’t think Hualian is a super healthy relationship. As fiction its fine (i firmly believe fiction impacts reality but let me finish), i guess bc literally nothing about their situation can be replicated irl and none of it ended up containing manipulation or abuse or anything bad but there was a potential for it to and i’m really glad it didnt go that route.

Hualian is a highly idealized and romanticized relationship full of some truly troubling feelings of self worth. While its “beautiful” in a way that hc really was xls most devoted believer, it wasnt healthy for him to live for xl like this. Nor was it healthy for xl to feel so unworthy of hua chengs love.  

Hua Cheng’s devotion to Xie Lian is a little too extreme and it bothers me. When the truth was revealed abt the Temple of 10,000 Gods I had the same reaction as Mu Qing and Feng Xin. I was like... HEY WHAT THE FUCKK that’s a little uh... thats NOT HEALTHY,, dianxia PLEASE say smth. But ofc Xie Lian didn’t say fucking anything and and i was so pissed. Like the whole thing of Hua Cheng living his life solely for XIe Lian is really kinda fucked up and not romantic. I was holding out hope that at some point XIe Lian would sit him down and be like “Hey! I love you and i’m really grateful that all these years you’ve still believed in me when no one else did. But you can’t just live your life for my sake. You deserve love from many other other people and deserve to have a life and happiness outside of me. I still want to spend the rest of my life with you, but you need to not only think of me.” or something to that effect

It bothers me that after Xie Lian learns the truth he doesn’t once reassure Hua Cheng that he didn’t have to make Xie Lian his reason for existence. Like.. idk i just think that’s rlly kinda unhealthy. Like I understand why Hua Cheng is so deeply devoted to Xie Lian-- he saved his life twice and was the only one to ever show him kindness and he’s seen xie lian suffer a fate worse than death multiple times. I get that he wants to protect him and make his life easier, but to not let anyone else into his life and spend 800 years looking for xie lian is just overkill. Like if the whole 10k statues thing never happened i’d be 100 percent fine with hualin but the whole devotion to that extent... uhhh yea.. no that put a bad taste in my mouth. Obsession should not be romanticised. I don’t think any reader of tgcf is going out and deciding to live like hua cheng obviously but still.

Also Side note, the whole 100 swords scene.. bro i felt for hua cheng, the way he screamed seeing that, i don’t blame him. I was so horrified reading that chapter. i don’t think i’ve been so horrified by a piece of media like that in a while. Poor fucking xie lian.. oh my god. I understand the intense reaction he had and how seeing that prompted such a degree of loyalty but still.. 10k statues?? the cave that mu qing and feng xin saw... thats a little too much obssession... like please.. dial it back.. im begging u.

I was talking to mary (liviahyes) and she said smth abt how Hua Cheng doesn’t have a character outside of xie lian. And she’s right, he kinda doesn’t. If Xie Lian didn’t exist neither would Hua Cheng. I get that that counds kinda romantic but in practice i don’t think its a good things. Especially because Xie Lian has a story outside of Hua Cheng, hehas goals, he has friends, he has something. Hua Cheng said it-- his only dream is Xie Lian. Which is romantic but very very unbalanced. 

THAT BEING SAID, i still rly liked their relationship and i think theyre cute they just have issues they need to work through. I mean they have time but yea. It wasn’t perfect but eh. overall i’m bitter bc they couldve been THAT COUPLE but theyre so many bad implications as mentioned above and i.. smh. They still have amazing moments. Like the lantern scene, the alter scene, the “what matters is you, not the state of you”, the end when hua cheng helps release the shackles on xie lian, the scene where hua cheng disappears, the way xie lian waited for him, like they were so close to being THAT COUPLE but then mxtx and her fujo ass just had to make it uncomfortable like that. i’m so bitter. Like the reason why i wrote out all of this is bc this novel could’ve been great but so many little things added up and made the experience far more sour than it shouldve been.

MXTX did hua cheng SO DIRTY by not giving him a character much outside of loving xie lian and being good at everything. Like when I first learned abt how Hua Cheng beat 33 heavenly officials at what they excel in best i was like WHO IS THIS LEGEND but honestly.. he rlly doesn’t have any motivations outside of helping xie lian and I wish he had more to him . Like if we had more situations like the one where hua cheng dug out his own eye to save the group of mortals on mount tong’lu then he’d have been a much more well rounded character. Honestly, that’s rlly the only instance where he seems to have taken xie lians ideals to heart. I wish we had more of that bc that scene was so cool. i wish it hadn’t been revealled so late and there was more than one occasion where he defends others (minus xie lian ofc) without anything for himself to gain that.

To contrast hualian with wangxian, i think wangxian work so well bc at their core, they have the same life goals and same ideas about people and the world. Where in hualian, xie lian has core principles and morals and hua cheng is just like, anything for xie lian. SMH they couldve been great but overall i think hualian falls flat for me because of my own fear of dating someone who doesn’t have a life outside of dating me. Moreso, my parents had this sort of unbalanced relationship towards the end of their marriage and it ended very badly and yea, i just can’t whole heartedly love relationships that in any way resemble this, even if it ends differently. that’s a personal thing tho.

I don’t think Hua Cheng has ANY bad intentions towards Xie Lian or ever will. I don’t think he’s ever manipulated xl or tried to force him to love him. But again, it’s my own personal feelings that makes me feel kinda.. ehh conflicted abt hualian. There was potential but again.. fujoshis ruin everything... smh. Overall i think the way it ended redeemed the issues it had but still there were issues and i really wish xie lian like,, reassured hua cheng about living his life freely at some point but whatever. 

IN CONCLUSION

TGCF had the potential to be better than mdzs, it rlly did but it was bogged down by the authors own toxic mentalities abt love, and mlm relationships, and treating women like ppl and it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I enjoyed this book, truly i did (otherwise i wouldn’t have stuck through and read 750k words of it) but there are some flaws that cannot be glossed over. I hope that tgcf when it does get adapted, goes through the same miracle that cql did and makes the characters more like ppl and less like tropes but i doubt it. Also i highly doubt that a live action tgcf is feasible given the supernatural aspects of the series but we shall see. I’m excited for the donghua when it eventual comes out but i will continue to be critical of the novel bc..well.. you see why. idk if i’d reccommend this book tbh bc like yes i would, no i would... well.. </3. yea. overall, it sure was something that i enjoyed in spades. especially the last 5 chapters. I generally liked it but had many issues with it at the same time, but honestly, yea thats the standard fair for a mxtx novel. 

[frizzyanya]

The Untamed Episode 12, My Commentary!

Spoilers coming, you’ve been warned...

Okay……..so they’re at the summer camp from hell (Emily’s words, not mine) though I’m just going to call it summer camp from now on.

Okay so JC found a hidden comb in his stuff…..I assumed it was his sister’s but then he started asking about Lady Wen…? 

Aaaaaaaand they’re locked in their dorms. Juuuuuust lovely. 

But how ever will WWX and LZ reunite to save the day?

Okay they’re all back together and being asked to recite the Wen encyclopedia. Greeeaaat.

Everybody is standing dead still and then there’s WWX fidgeting like crazy. He’s seriously the poster boy for ADHD.

And now WWX he VOLUNTEERED to recite it all……….when LZ said he would not. Oh dear. Please don’t get yourself killed, my love.

I mean I know he’s like this epic savant, but still…..he’s got a mouth on him and it’s always a little nerve wracking waiting for him to speak in a situation like this…..

OMG he’s pretending to stretch to get ready. 

I’d love for him to rap it, since I saw Zhao Xian rap on youtube once and it was my favorite thing ever. LMAAAOOOO

OH MY FUCKING GOD

I recognized what was happening right away actually when he started reciting the Lan Clan rules. 

The fucking nerve of him, I LOVE IT.

He’s a fucking ballsy BOSS and I love him for it.

Oh no, who all will have to go down for this??

Okay just the three of them! So WWX can try to talk to LZ again!

Nevermind, I shouldn’t have thought that!

I mean I love him and all but this man literally has a death wish. No weapon on him and back talking Bad Guy telling the guy that he smells like the dung. You dumdum!

Not that he deserved to be whipped of course, but if anyone in history has ever asked to be whipped, it was him, in that moment.

HOLY SHIT LZ STEPPING IN FRONT OF THE WHIP FOR HIM AND GRABBING IT WAS LIKE THE SEXIEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN.

HOLY SHIT.

AND THEN HIM KNEELING TO BAE’S LEVEL WHEN WWX FELL.

I.

FUCKING.

CAN’T.

LZ is literally holding WWX’s arm to support him staying upright. 

GAWD, to think of how he stayed so far away from him before and now THIS.

“Take him to the dungeon.” 

LZ IMMEDIATELY STANDS UP AND PUTS AN ARM OUT TO PROTECT HIM.

They’re way outnumbered but WWX having LZ as like a guardian angel is Too Much. 

Also LZ still has not said one single word.

DID THE WEN CLAN SILENCE HIM

IS THAT PART OF THIS

Wen Ning’s love for WWX is SO FUCKING PURE in its own right. 

He’s so sweet.

WHAT’S IN THE DUNGEON

L

M

A

O

That is quite possibly the fakest faked tv effect I’ve ever seen. But still, poor WWX.

“If you survive the night…” yeeeaaahhhh he’ll have that thing domesticated by sunrise.

“If you don’t it’ll be your own fault for being a smartass.” (paraphrased) ACCURATE. Bad Guy is right…..

Lady Wen! She came to see JC?!?!?

Awwww I swooned a little bit when he said her name so delicately. I will go down with this ship. (And I know I will go down, because they are extremely star crossed.)

His fight with this animatronic is sooooo silly. 

Did Lady Wen tranquilize it…?

WEN NING

I LOVE YOU

Okay now WWX is basically on death’s door. Okay then. He can fight off every evil person or animal, but not an animatronic that’s not even good enough to be in Disney World…

Good thing Wen Ning has a magic potion for him.

Oh! WN is telling WWX about poor LZ’s Cloud Recesses!

Wait, so they DID break his leg. 

How much time has passed?? How is he moving like normal??

WN’s actor is PERFECT for the role. He seems so innocent and lovely.

WWX IS DYING AND HE’S STILL LIKE “I SHOULD SAVE THIS MEDICINE FOR LAN ZHAN.” AHHHH I’m just <3 <3 <3 RIGHT NOW. SWOOOOOOON.

By the by, Zhao Xian is KILLING this half dead scene. A+++ acting here imo.

HE TOOK OUT THE TRANQUILIZER DARTS. I thought they’d leave that as a plothole, but instead he’ll use them as weapons, right????

BETTER YET, FEED BAD GUY TO THE BEAST.

PLEASE.

UGH. WHY IS WWX LIKE THIS.

Why’s he have to be a smart ass and ask to fight him. Dumdum!

The moment where the Lan Clan came up in conversation (when they were all supposed to be silent, but they’re all casually talking like nbd? Ummm okay?) was soooooo sad. Poor LZ.

JC bringing WWX food is lovely and I’m a fan. Brotherly love. <3

LZ not being forced to read during the recitation of the encyclopedia makes me wonder if they really did silence him. 

He’s said like 3 words so far I think, but this is nuts.

“There are probably monsters.” “Good, send the summer campers there.” Lol

Okay yeah, LZ IS injured. It wasn’t as visible before I guess,

“How bout you let me carry you.” My first thought was haha as if, LZ would NEVER allow that. My second thought…...all thought was wiped from my brain by WWX’s cute open expression. <3

[callanthea]

How Lan WangJi’s Character Could Be Improved

@arsnovacadenza​​ recently commented that Lan WangJi isn’t a super compelling character, and I wanted to share my thoughts on this subject!

First and foremost, let’s just make this clear: Lan WangJi is a very good and likable person. He’s always willing to help someone in need, he’s badass, he’s extremely hardworking and studious, he’s very generous and kind, he’s really warm and loving towards WWX, etc. etc. This point is pretty much undeniable. 

However, just because someone is a good person does not mean that they are a compelling character!! 

What do I mean by compelling character? I mean a character who has relatable thoughts, motivations, and development. A character with multiple sides and facets, with various flaws and strengths that are displayed over the course of the plot. A character who you could legitimately see as a real human being.

With these traits in mind, there are two areas of LWJ’s character that I take issue with.

1) LWJ never truly grows much as a character. His only real development was to fall in love with WWX and become less stuffy. This development happens extremely early (when he’s a teenager), and he never changes after this has finished. This is because LWJ never makes any mistakes, so he never has a chance to learn from those mistakes. 

[EDIT: Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed LWJ’s development in the flashbacks when he learned to stop repressing himself. But in the present-day story, he really doesn’t go through any changes at all. Sure, you can say him having finished his character arc in the flashbacks is the whole point, but IMO it’s more than a little awkward for LWJ’s character arc to be over before the story has actually begun.]  

(By “mistake”, I mean something the story acknowledges as a mistake. Defending WWX at SPOILER LOCATION was not a mistake, being unsuccessful in taking WWX back to Gusu was not a mistake. The story never treats these like bad decisions, and LWJ never learns anything from them. LWJ has absolutely no regrets about these actions, and would gladly try to do them again.) 

By the time of WWX’s resurrection, LWJ is already too perfect and has nowhere else to grow.

[Compare this to another Kuudere archetype love interest, He Xiuyuan in Poor and Humble Sect. One of the key plot points in that story is how He Xiuyuan goes through immense struggles to suppress his inner shameful nature and desires. He Xiuyuan was also aware of his unintelligence compared to the MC, and initially wanted to be a mindless follower of the MC. These are real character flaws that must be overcome. And of course, it’s super fulfilling when He Xiuyuan allows himself to chase his true desires and gains the confidence to stand alongside the MC as an equal.]

2) LWJ’s motivations are all related to protecting WWX. The moment that WWX reappears, LWJ drops literally everything else in favor of making WWX stay by his side. Okay, don’t get me wrong--based on the sheer tragedy of WWX’s life before his first death, the only way he would ever get a happy ending would be if someone always stood by his side, believed in him, and supported him. But believe it or not, a person can have more than one motivation. It’s a little uncomfortable that Wei Wuxian is Lan Wangji’s entire world for literally all of the  present-day story scenes. The story would be more interesting IMO if a) Lan Wangji had other obligations/goals besides being so incredibly (almost slavishly) devoted to WWX, or b) Lan Wangji’s devotion to WWX was treated with at least some appropriate consequences by the story.

[Compare this to the love interest in MXTX’s previous novel: Luo Binghe in Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System. Luo Binghe was absolutely obsessed with the MC there, but the MC was realistically very uncomfortable with this level of obsession. This became a point of conflict between the two. Overcoming this conflict made their relationship much stronger and their character development more satisfying.]

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The combination of these two points leads to something strange: MDZS is not Lan WangJi’s story at all. It’s very very much Wei Wuxian’s story, while Lan Wangji kind of just... tags along. 

I mean, it’s really nice that MDZS is so focused on world-building and plot that the romance can take a backseat. But I find it strange that almost all the side characters are more interesting/complex (IMO) than the main love interest. Literally every other character in MDZS makes mistakes, and then develops and/or suffers as a result. Even Mianmian grows more than LWJ did, despite her very little screen-time.

------------------------------------------

So how could LWJ’s character be improved in my opinion? Again, I have two solutions so far.

1) Play up and analyze LWJ’s flaws over the course of the story. 

LWJ does actually have flaws when you look closely enough, it’s just that the current story doesn’t really treat those flaws as flaws (LWJ doesn’t receive any negative consequences for them). I mentioned that all his motivations are related to protecting WWX--that kind of blind faith can be a flaw! In fact, Lan Xichen suffers because of a similar degree of devotion/faith towards Jin GuangYao. 

-What if the story played up that parallel between the two Lan brothers, and led to their relationship worsening (at least temporarily, before it got better)? 

-What if the public opinion of Lan Wangji went down the drain because of his defense of WWX? Imagine an arc where LWJ and WWX were /both/ on the run.

-WWX’s negative character traits are wonderfully examined through the use of Jin GuangYao and Xue Yang as foils, “what Wei Wuxian could have been.” So, what if LWJ’s negative character traits were similarly analyzed through an antagonist who was LWJ’s foil? (No, I don’t mean Su She. Fuck Su She, he is garbage both as a person and as a character. He has the stupidest motivation imaginable: “hurr durr I hate Lan Wangji for being too perfect, so I’m gonna be evil now.” His entire existence is such an obvious straw man designed by the author purely to make Lan Wangji look good in comparison.) 

I think a perfect third major antagonist would be someone whose main flaw is their undying devotion out of love, which drives them to increasingly villainous acts. Think someone like Wen Zhuliu, but with a bigger role in the story, preferably replacing Su She. Confronting this kind of antagonist would give LWJ the opportunity to grow and prove he won’t make the same mistakes as that character. 

2) Give LWJ a more complex character dynamic with WWX.

I think MDZS would be more interesting if LWJ and WWX disagreed more in the present day. If LWJ was more hostile towards demonic cultivation, if he and WWX legitimately fought over this issue. If LWJ felt more conflicted about WWX’s past crimes when he went berserk at Buyetian. If WWX wanted to reconnect with his old life but LWJ disagreed, and the two had an argument. 

As it is right now, there’s never any real conflict between WWX and LWJ besides the usual “hmmmm should we be a couple???” 

Seriously, just compare the complexity of the LWJ-WWX dynamic to the JC-WWX dynamic or the Three Brothers dynamic, it’s not even fair. 

I’m not asking that LWJ and WWX hate each other, hell no. But you can love someone without worshiping their every move. You can love someone and still think they are making a mistake. In fact, you need conflict in order for a relationship to come out more powerful and resilient than it was before.

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All in all, I like Lan WangJi’s character just fine. He serves his purpose in the current story very well. I just do not love him the way I love many other characters in MDZS. I’m disappointed that he didn’t get the full character depth/development/exploration he deserves, especially since so many other characters in MDZS do. Lan WangJi deserves to be more than just the “ideal perfect boyfriend” character. He deserves to be as deep as a real human being too.

[lesbiansluffy]

One last question if you like. Dont need to answer immediately or at all. Really im just curious now. Who are your fav characters of the untamed and why? ^^

okay so this question is actually really hard because out of the main characters i feel like i love everyone so much?? but okay i'll try to keep this short dfghjkfds

wei wuxian: i love wwx so much i would literally die for him tbh. he is just so good and kind and he always tries to do what's right and protect those who cannot protect themselves but he actually doesn’t get anything in return most of the time it's so sad 😭 ever since he was a child he suffered, he suffered under madam yu's hatred when he grew up in lotus cove, and well you know how much he would continue to suffer later in his life :( but despite everything he always gave, he gave jiang cheng his golden core, he gave everything he had to save the wens from a fate they didn’t deserve. i also love him because he is so incredibly strong! he has been to hell and back again and yet he never gives up and has so much love to give! but, and i love that espeic, he can also be a little bitch and petty and i just. i love him very much ❤️

lan wangji: similarly to wwx, he's also been through a lot. he suffered a lot in his still young life and despite always looking cold and untouchable he actually cares more about everything than anybody else. he has been raised to follow rules and orders but he isn't afraid to do what he believes is right. his love for his family and for wwx is all-encompassing and just so strong and beautiful and selfless 😭 additionally, i like how he can be so sarcastic and still just the biggest sweetheart at the same time! lwj deserves everything good in the world 😭❤️

wen qing: i was fascinated by wq ever since her first appearance on the show. i think she and wwx are actually very similar in character and many of their scenes directly parallel each other. wq is a healer but was forced by a family she didn’t care for to do things she didn’t want to do and most of what she did, she did to protect her younger brother. she can be harsh but she’s caring and i think she and wwx shared and understanding with each other like nobody else on the show. i loved how she seemed so content at the burial mounds, the way she subtly tried to take care of wwx, and how she teased him ❤️ she’s just an incredibly strong woman who deserved much better.

jiang cheng: jc is a special case for me because i started out not liking him much at all tbh. i mean, the first time we see him he tries to kill wwx fdfhjfds but then the show showed us more of him, the way he loved his family, and adored his older siblings. the way he tried to protect wwx from madam yu. the way he sufffered after his golden core was crushed. imo jc is an incredibly tragic character. he didn’t know what wwx did for him and started resenting him for the things he thought he did. he got angry and most of all bitter over the years. the fact that the audience at all times knows more than jc just adds to the dramatic irony of his character :( after watching the whole show, he has definitely become one of my faves!

nie huaisang: listen i LOVE nhs!! i love how smart he is while being a dumbass at the same time, truly an accomplishment. i love how literally everyone underestimates him. i love his friendship with wwx. i love how soft he is because when he suddenly isn’t anymore it just hits that much harder (re: fatal journey). i love how small he is. i love how his image is so well-calculated while being real at the same time. i love how he somehow achieved the impossible by sheer willpower. i love that he's the one no one expects! i just. i love everything about nie huaisang ❤️❤️

the juniors (lan sizhui, lan jingyi, jin ling, & ouyang zizhen): they’re babies and i adore them. that’s all.

(btw it's only fair if you tell me your fave characters as well, anon!)