#I would have loved to make this more Wangxian ™️

[vanigoghhomeplease]

Part 2 (Wei Wuxian)

Part 1 (Lan Wangji) here

(cw: I’d say canon-typical levels of body dysmorphia going on in this one)

*

Wei Wuxian used to love his body.

He used to say, I have a good body. It’s strong, and it’s beautiful, and it’s full of light.

And when his friends rolled their eyes and told him, You think of yourself too much, he wasn’t bothered, because he knew it wasn’t true. These moments, when he spoke aloud all the good things about his body, were the only times he thought much about himself at all — and was pleased by the warm snap of realization that he actually loved himself very much.

*

Wei Wuxian’s body did what he asked of it, over and over and over.

He got it drunk, and still it woke in the mornings. He scrambled through the forest and the welts from whipping branches healed before he could concern himself with their sting. He launched himself at people — to pummel them, to embrace them — and his hands, his legs, his lips obeyed.

He believed he contained a light that would never go out.

*

Wei Wuxian thought hard before hollowing himself out.

And when Wen Qing tried to talk him out of it, how could he tell her?

I’ve already done it. I am so close to being empty already, and my brother so nearly whole again.

How could she know the light was burning him from the inside?

*

Wei Wuxian peeled away from his spent body like skin curling from a rash. His wounds, which used to solder themselves back together in an afternoon, were now permanent, his bandages just another layer to dress in the mornings.

Every person he saw had a better body than his, and they didn’t even know it. Every movement made by someone else was an improvement — more organic, more confident, than his own.

*

He called Lan Zhan’s name in the market and watched him look up, his neck solid as the swooping branch of a cyprus, his hands blushed at the knuckles like a doll’s. It hit Wei Wuxian then what a ghost he’d already become. Standing before Lan Zhan, he was a specter peering out through a mirror at the living.

*

When Wei Wuxian fell, his body wasn’t his. He’d already given it away, pound by pound of flesh: little grisly gifts that he was sure everyone around him was simply too afraid to ask for.

*

And now that he has a body again, can he really say that it belongs to him?

He runs his fingers through its hair and feels the scalp pull. When he is alone, he bites the fleshy part of its hand, just below the index finger, until it’s red and glistening.

The pain means something, he thinks, but he just can’t work it out.

*

But now, when his mind tells him he’s missed a step on the stairs and he gasps awake into yet another borrowed day, there is a pair of hands that catch him. There are ten other fingers that tug through his hair. There is another set of lips that kiss the mark his strange teeth have left on his unfamiliar hand. There is Lan Zhan: stolid and wry and somehow still rooted in himself after more than one lifetime.

*

Uncanny as a snail swapping shells, Wei Wuxian settles. His new body teaches him patience; it gets him where he wants to go. And there is light inside it — just enough, just one small candle to show him the way forward.

*

He sits late into the night, Lan Zhan sleeping, breathing a steady song beside him, and he thinks, What is a body if not a bridge? I can reach out and touch him — isn’t that the only thing that matters?

In his last life, Wei Wuxian reached out and touched everything in his path, whether it was a waterfall or a sizzling coal.

He had just wanted to know what it all felt like.

He lays a palm across Lan Zhan’s cheek, cool with sleep and night air. He wonders, as Lan Zhan stirs and presses into his hand, curling closer and then growing still again, how he ever missed it before: this bridge suspended between them — this twist of fibrous devotion so unyielding it could reach around the stars and yank them closer — this rushing, visceral love that renders the body — any body — inconsequential.

[cqlfeels]

This is an older Thoughts™️ question, but do you think in the cottage of evil au, that XY and JGY ever like. Scorn WWX. Because "shut up, you're not a TRUE evil gremlin" because while JGY doesnt want XY to kill the merchants, it's for a practical reason (damages + at some point you run out of food delivery???), but with WWX, he just like. Thinks people in general deserve breathing rights (unless its JGS).

(Also, how threatened does XY feel because may I remind that WWX was also a XXC fanboy so like. Wangxian are ruining his day)

Are you kidding me? Always talk to me about this au! I suck at tagging and I have a cottage of evil au tag! That's how much I love this scenario! I would actually print fic to be able to read it if someone were to write it!

The thing is, XY, JGY, WWX each think "I'm the best of The Villains, I'm the only one who does it right!" because each of them has a worldview they don't share with the others. XY thinks he's the only one who's bound by no rules or sentimentality, JGY thinks he's the only one who's competent and Moral™, WWX thinks he's the only one who's a mad genius with a cause. They're each Judging the other two at all times, but they also don't want to disappoint their respective white-robed heroes, so it's a cold war situation. Except each of them thinks they're winning, because they're all playing different games. At this point, it serves as enrichment, really.

Now, as for the XXC crush - hell yeah. WWX and LWJ have a crush on XXC, and don't forget SL is also around because I keep inviting people into this cottage to the point it's more of an entire coutryside by now. Anyway, XY's life is hard! While LXC and LWJ rank higher on the hottest cultivator list, apparently everybody has a crush on his white-robed hero, it's not fair! Made even worse by the fact XXC is genuinely oblivious to it and just wants to be nice to his cottagemates 🥰 while XY is stabbing vegetables in the background while making eye contact. Unfortunately for him, I give it less than a week before WWX discovers flirting with XXC doesn't bother XXC, does piss off XY, and has the bonus of making LWJ angry in the fun way that leads to ill-advised uses for his forehead ribbon. So you know. It's very slightly weird to flirt with his shishu who is too good for this world too pure, but that's a sacrifice WWX is willing to make.

[cqlfeels]

Liveblogging #8

Today we begin Chapter 4: The Elegant Flirt

I should reaaaally make more of the Cloud Recesses-Hanshan connection, but I haven't read much Hanshan

Anyway I've always loved how this chapter begins. The peaceful and dignified description of Cloud Recesses...... and then WWX wailing

I love how the text keeps emphasizing LWJ enforces rules only when he feels like it. Dragging JC is always allowed in Cloud Recesses. Or out of it. Behind his back or to his face. There's no wrong way to say JC sucks.

WWX needs to keep his identity concealed if he wants to stay alive and yet he feels the need to say he can actually play the flute well. I love him

The translation of 号 as sobriquet is pretty standard but I will continue to campaign for the standard to become epithet. I have no reason for this other than personal preference and it's so not my place to say but what's liveblogging for if not for this kind of ultimately pointless comment, right?

LWJ: Are you going to visit Lianfang-zun again? Even if I make sure to call him in the most formal way possible? Xiongzhang is cruel and unjust. I shall take Wei Ying and roam the world. I can no longer thrive in this household.

"LXC and LWJ were equally hot. However, LWJ was so insufferable that he made his brother seem more attractive."

LXC: I'm off to visit A-Yao! In the meantime please treat better this man you're dragging into Cloud Recesses against his will. Have fun!

Love the implication that JGS preferred JGY to MXY when, if anything, it was the opposite. (Not that he liked either very much)

It's just objectively funny to see "Here are the three plot-relevant children of JGS. None of them have the same mother."

Oh, so Jingshi will be translated? I can see why, but I wasn't expecting it

Press F for the juniors who have to witness LWJ giving orders to take the whiny suspicious cutsleeve with a crush to his bedroom

"Oh, the incense smells like Lan Zhan," thought WWX, and then immediately decided he had to be as close to it as possible. But like. Heterosexually.

LOVE that this edition thought it was essential to tell us that the Lan have cold springs in part to counteract the Lan Horniness™️

WWX feeling bad for messing up the folded robes but not for stealing the token is... extremely WWX-y of him

"it wasn’t as if he were actually into men, no matter how beautiful this man was" Flip the gender and you have baby me finding out I was bi. I'm in this picture and I don't like it

Poor juniors scarred for life that WWX would imply he saw LWJ bathing. Little do they know they'll see LWJ try out bondage in public in the near future.

"Throw him out of the mountain? Yes, please! Silence him? No, thank you." At least he's self-aware.

WWX sees LWJ slightly disheveled and angry and immediately goes no thought head empty and that's just objectively hilarious

I don't know what this says about me, but I really love the stage of wangxian where WWX is trying and failing to find something that will make LWJ hate him

Okay and as WWX is literally collapsed on LWJ, I'll take the scene break as my cue to stop reading for today