#I would 100% blame Yanli's unconditional support for that tho

[nashanren]

I hope you don't mind but ohh, I actually have thoughts on this, I think the way he turned out is super realistic! like the mechanism you describe is very real and that's what happened to Jiang Cheng I believe, I mean he is terrified of making mistakes, he follows rules whenever he can and gets anxious when he cannot, he is obsessed with how he is judged by others and he desperately craves to be accepted and seen as worthy and I would link all of these traits to the way he was treated (even if it was emotional abuse only)

but Wei Wuxian? he never really could do the things the right way. at least from what we see in cql, it doesn't really matter if he was right or not, if he followed some rule or not. in fact, he is objectively better at following the Jiang Clan motto! but it's not mistakes that he was being punished for, it's things outside of his control such as where he is coming from or how his uncle favours him. we actually see in the flashbacks that young Wei Wuxian wants nothing more than to be loved and accepted and he doesn't dare to bother any adults even if he has too big shoes or doesn't have a place to sleep at and so I bet that as a child he tried very goddamn hard to do everything perfectly but he was also always very observant and so obviously he noticed that it's not about how hard he tries or how well he conforms he will always be punished for things outside of his control. even his martial arts talent is turned against him because it threatens Jiang Cheng's and so Madam Yu's position

I also read Wei Wuxian as an adhd-coded character, since he shows a lot of adhd traits and to grow up neurodivergent means to constantly break some rules you were not aware were there, breaking rules you didn't think of because they didn't make sense for you, breaking rules because your impulsivity will always override your other needs. it's fucking confusing to feel like you're doing your best, like you would lie down your life for people around you and yet being constantly told that everything about you is wrong anyway.

so at some point you just realise no matter how much effort you put in you will never be able to conform and you can either continue losing your whole energy to no effect or you can just develop a good pain tolerance (which he did, oh how he did). and you know, living on a street as a child is pretty good basis for the latter too

but even with all of the above, Wei Wuxian actually isn't nearly as careless or rebellious as he is painted to be? in fact, I would argue that there is no character understanding written and unwritten rules better than he does in the whole show (yes, including lwj). he complains about Lan Sect Rules but he memorises them perfectly, he is great at controling tension in any room, he immediately realises he cannot make an angry stand during the archery competition and choses to make a show-off of himself instead (to the same effect of preventing the Wen captives from getting hurt), he recites Wen Clan teachings at Wen Chao. Wei Wuxian is absolutely in tune with the rules and the loopholes they carry because he was forced to learn it since very early on. but since whatever he does he expects a punishment now, he believes that he is free to do whatever he finds right and like, what's the worst that could happen? more pain? at this point he doesn't remember living without pain anyway

so to reiterate, I just think that Wei Wuxian didn't have a chance to develop this fear of making mistakes since anything he did was interpreted for a mistake and so he went towards the path of believing himself to be broken from the start and if he's broken and hated anyway then why not use it for his purposes? if he is a rule-breaker anyway than why not break the rules that shouldn't be there? if he is wrong then why not use it to do things the right people would be scared to do?

(and then there's some things both WWX and JC and also Jiang Yanli share, like how they believe they could not be loved unconditionally, lack of self-esteem, how they see love as giving yourself up, how they are ready to easily sacrifice their bodies and lives for their loved ones and each other, which are all effects of having not the most healthy family environment growing up, to put it mildly. but I still believe that WWX ends up most fucked-up because he didn't even get a chance to develop the kind of anxiety-based perfectionism his other two siblings show)

Let's talk about how every time Madam Yu put Wei Wuxian on his knees and hit him with a whip it should have served to produce an adult afraid of making mistakes and not the person Wei Wuxian grew to be?

Like, we know each person deals with trauma differently, but just listen. He should be so afraid of being beaten when he makes a mistake that he would probably follow the rules like no one else in that world.

For real you guys, Wei Wuxian being the way he is, it's a miracle.