#SO NORMAL ABOUT WWX'S WHOLE ACCOUNT

[travalerray]

random things I forgot about until now: JFM apparently made the spines of the kites JC and WWX used to compete with. Which JYL personally painted.

Very normal about this one guys

[pumpkin-master]

So like, I know MDZS has that whole Wei Wuxian's smile is a very nice and bright thing going on and he's a pretty cheerful, optimistic and carefree guy right? In addition to that he has adopted siblings who he loves more than the world, questionable parental figures, an antagonistic view towards strict rules, and a deep love for all his precious people.

You know who this reminds me of?

Monkey D. Luffy

The obvious

Luffy is almost always seen and described with his trademark 'D' smile which is bright and happy to everyone who sees it. Both of them are people who will absolutely go to the ends of the world to make their precious people happy as well as protect them.

Family

It's also fair to take into account their familial situations, with WWX obviously not having any contact with any sort of relative of his. The closest we get, in fact, is probably Xiao XingChen, who is technically not even blood related.

Jiang Fengmian technically counts as his uncle but just barely because he knew WWX's dad very well.

And now when you look at Luffy, obviously his Dad is alive and we know Jack about his mom, but both are noticeably absent from their child's life. The only "parental" figures in his life (if you can even call them that despite how much I love them.) are Dadan and Garp.

(I'm sorry to say that Shanks doesn't count despite how much it hearts my heart. But he's more of an idol to Luffy and was only around for maybe a year at most in Fuscha? Though I guess you can call him a parental figure if you squint, but even then he's an active pirate and that alone warrants the 'questionable' title.)

And look, Dadan...is a mountain bandit and clearly not the 'parental' type, despite how much she loves ASL, and Garp... Well, do I need to say anything there? Sicked his grandchildren onto a mountain bandit and regularly put them into dangerous situations in order to become stronger. I don't doubt he loves them, but he's just not fit for raising a child as we've seen.

You could fit Makino if you really tried but she's more like the kind older sister type than a mom.

Onto the siblings, both WWX and Luffy were brought into an already existing sibling dynamic, e.i. WWX with Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli & Luffy with Ace and Sabo. Both had a bit of a hard time entering the dynamic for differing reasons (JC because he was mad that his dogs were sent away and Ace just didn't want Luffy around until he stuck up for them with Bluejam). This is an interesting similarity because they are such differing ways to enter similar dynamics.

Views on Authority

Moving onto how they view the world, both of these characters dislike strict authority, obviously they both recognize that there needs to be some authority to regulate and decide certain matters, but strict stifling authority is where these characters start getting itchy.

Some obvious examples include WWX and the rules of Cloud Recesses, be constantly complained about them and he questioned how the disciples and sect Members even survived there. Another honorable mention should probably be the Wen clan indoctrination and how that whole bit went down.

For Luffy, I feel like I shouldn't need to mention the whole Pirates vs Marines since it's kind of a given, but for this I specifically mean the "hard" justice that many seem to have, like Akainu and the world government. Who just seem to wipe islands off the map willy and just assassinate any other opposition.

I should mention that both of these characters are fine with normal authority, each sect for WWX has their own governing style and enforcement but unless it's a problem for everyone else, they don't really do much. And Luffy is fine with fair authority given by how he treats Boa who is queen of Amazon lily, Momonosuke who is supposed to be Shogun and treats him as such, King Riku as well as Viola and Rebecca who are princesses. He simply treats everybody the same but he respects their position for the most part.

Friends and Precious people

Now, the most obvious thing here is that these characters will move the heavens, part the seas, and raise the dead for their precious people (sometimes literally). They both take Honor to their promises extremely seriously, WWX owed a life debt to Wen Qing and her brother for saving them and doing the core transfer (as well as WWX just not excusing what are essentially concentration camps), so he repaid the action by saving the remnants and he promised to bring Wen Ning back to life. Which as we all know, he did.

And that's not even saying like I mentioned that he gave his golden core to his brother since he lost it to the Melting hand, and before THAT he was willing to give up his hand so the Wens would forgive the sect. It’s also notable that he promised Madam Yu he would protect Jiang Cheng with his life, and, well, everything that happened afterward should tell you he did his best!

To say he takes his honor and promises seriously is an understatement. Yet the same is also true with Luffy.

We all know that Luffy is big on promises and his nakama, a huge part of One piece is demonstrating how far he and his crew go for their friends and comrades. Some examples of major things like this are:

Arlong Park and helping nami

Promising Laboon to come back and fight him

Helping Vivi defeat crocodile

Saving Robin at Ennies Lobby

Promising to help Brook reunite with Laboon

Literally all of Marineford (despite how it ends, the effort alone Luffy put into saving his brother should tell you enough)

Fishman island

Liberating Dressrosa

Wano (literally what do I need to say there? It speaks for itself)

I might have missed a few and others may not have made it but these are the biggest displays of Luffy loyalty and promises.

It is also notable that if you feed Luffy, he will repay it. That is a threat. Tama fed him once in Wano and after realizing that was her last bow of rice and the whole issue with the country, he literally fought to liberate the country with a whole army.

Symbolism

Theres a lot more I could say but the last things I will dig into is this. Both Luffy and WWX have constant symbolisms of ‘Freedom’, whether they’re quite literal or more nuanced.

WWX always has had a carefree character and this is displayed in numerous ways, like how he named his sword “whatever” or how how he’s unashamed to show his more childish side at times (“Xian Xian is three!”). His flippant attitude towards authority tells you enough but he’s also prone to use the punishment against the punisher by finding a way to make it entertaining for him. (I.e. annoying Lan Wangji and provoking Wen Chao.)

This is also just in general that his name is symbolism towards his character, with how Wei Wuxian means “no/without envies” which really gives you an idea about his personality. I’m not a mandarin speaker nor even attempting to learn it, so more information his name and it’s symbolism can be found on this post.

Now Luffy, we can’t exactly say the aumbolism isn’t hitting us in the fact with all the sun motifs and it literally being mentioned multiple times as “warrior of liberation”, “joyboy” and whatnot.

But Luffy’s smile and constant laughter is associated Nika the sun god who was a warrior who fought for freedom and s the god slaves pray to in secret. (And supposedly based on an actual diety whom i don’t actually remember the origins of right now.)

And with the Sun symbolism (this is honestly now head canon territory) but the thousand sunny being a ship that carries the fruit of the sun god doesn’t seem like a coincidence, and another is that Luffy’s straw hat being something akin to a halo is a pretty neat idea.

Conclusion

Both of these characters are some of my favorite in media and the similarities between symbolism and parallels they have with each other is insane, I honestly hope people see that this type of characterization is very fun and amazing.

But honestly i just wanted to write a character analysis with these two cause they are my fav bois haha.

[marshmallowwitharubberband]

Was Mo Xuan Yu REALLY an insane cutsleeve? Or did JGY spread that rumor to justify himself?

Because we don't ever get to actually *meet* the guy, we just have what others said about him as evidence in both accounts.

And the whole novel is precisely about how wrong public opinion can be about someone, it's the whole *point* of the story.

For all we know, he could have been a perfectly normal dude, who knew too much. We know for a fact everyone would believe the one in power first, so who would question JGY's accusation? Especially seeing how cultivation society valued your worth as a human by your parentage, MXY was just another lowly b4stard, and weak to boot. No one would want to defend him.

And he may have NOT been insane, just desperate but unable to escape, and the Mo's would obviously try to make themselves look better by claiming he wasn't in his right mind. He had no one to vouch for him.

Even when he resorted to making the ritual, his soul leaves without ever speaking to WWX. He obviously wanted revenge but many other non-insane characters did too.

I'm just sayin'.

Unless MXTX clarified that at some point, hehe, I've been in the fandom so long that fanon, author's word, canon, and canon invented for adaptations get all mixed up in my head lol.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Cultivated-to-Immortality post-canon where cultivation in modern day is mostly mysterious and many doubt it's real - and then WWX gets a cooking show...

“I’m going to murder him,” Jiang Cheng said blankly.

He wasn’t even angry or frustrated or any of the things he normally was when he said something like that. That would require actually reacting to -

What he just saw.

With his own eyes.

For real.

“You can’t do that,” Nie Huaisang said from where he was curled into a tiny little ball on their on-the-verge-of-breaking-down couch – modern things were really crap. The thing couldn’t be older than what, thirty or forty years, and it was already useless, and Nie Huaisang wasn’t helping matters by crying tears of laughter into the worn-out cushions like he was right now. “He’s immortal, remember? We’re all immortal.”

“Immortal in the sense that we won’t die of old age,” Jiang Cheng said. “I can still kill him.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t,” Jiang Cheng admitted. He was pretty sure they’d established that back in Wei Wuxian’s first life, forget his subsequent resurrection or when they all unexpectedly achieved immortality. “But I could definitely break his legs. He’d heal from that quick enough.”

“The day you break his legs will be the same day you do it to Jin Ling,” Nie Huaisang said wisely. “And I know you wouldn’t do that to our beloved junior squad.”

“You really need to stop calling them juniors, they’re all married with children and grandchildren a half-dozen times over already, and anyway stop getting away from the main point, which is this – this – this travesty.”

“It’s not a travesty,” Nie Huaisang said, pretending towards solemnity. Jiang Cheng didn’t know why he bothered, it wasn’t like they hadn’t spent centuries together by now on account of immortality being a little lonely and them not liking anyone else who’d reached immortality enough to want to spend that sort of time with them. “It’s a cooking show.”

“It can be a cooking show and a travesty! It’s a cooking show run by Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng growled. His stomach hurt just remembering the many times he’d been suckered into trying something because this time I’ve really got it down, I promise, you’ll like it! “Of course it’s a travesty. Did you see the set up he has going on? He has an entire wall of hot peppers!”

“Hmm, good point,” Nie Huaisang said. “You’re right. Something needs to be done about this.”

“I’m glad we agree.”

“I’ll send him some peppers from our garden,” Nie Huaisang decided. “I have that new varietal breed that we’ve been working on, extra hot; he’ll love it.”

“Don’t you dare send him the Zidian pepper without letting me try it first,” Jiang Cheng said pointedly. “It’s mine. He only gets leftovers once I’ve decided it’s complete. Anyway, are you telling me that you don’t think that this - this - this thing is a disgrace?”

They both looked at the screen, where the words ‘CHEF CULTIVATOR’ had appeared in large letters.

“I don’t know,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “I rather like the conceit of it – the mysterious food-obsessed Chairman kidnapping the heirs of the various cultivation clans...it’s all very historically accurate, at least?”

“One, Wen Ruohan wasn’t a Chairman, he was a tyrannical warlord who made all our lives absolutely miserable. Two, if that set is supposed to be the Nightless City, why is it so dark, and what’s with all the lava everywhere? I’m not even going to touch on the rock chair thing that no cultivator who values the state of their ass would ever sit on -”

“I don’t know about that,” Nie Huaisang said, looking down at their shitty couch with a exaggerated thoughtful look.

Jiang Cheng ignored him. He didn’t want to go couch-shopping again. It’d only been a few decades!

“And three,” he said, soldiering on, “I feel the need to point out that the cultivation clans were not named ‘Spicy’, ‘Barbecue’, ‘Vegetarian’, and ‘Expensive Fusion’.”

“But he’s got the coloring right and everything! And it’s really funny to see a chef outfit done up in that awful Jin gold color...”

Jiang Cheng put his head in his hands.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nie Huaisang said, completely unable to resist bursting out in occasional bouts of giggling. “This is exactly like the time the Wen sect forced all of us to attend their indoctrination camp. Exactly like! You’re just misremembering.”

“I’m pretty sure that I’d remember being forced to compete in some sort of absurd cooking competition with mystery ingredients.”

“Would’ve been nice if we had.” At Jiang Cheng’s incredulous expression, Nie Huaisang shrugged. “Better than listening to Wen Chao talk, no?”

“…well, yes,” Jiang Cheng admitted. “Still, the whole thing seems a bit much. Cultivation is now state-regulated - by which we mean mostly banned from public knowledge - and our sects are all shrouded in mystery...this does seem to lower the tone a bit.”

“Like you care about tone.”

Jiang Cheng, who’d declared that he’d stopped giving a fuck sometime around the eleventh century, had to concede that.

“How’d he get the whole thing approved by the government?” he asked instead. “I thought they censored anything to do with modern-day cultivation.”

“I don’t think they’re that concerned about him spilling actual cultivation secrets on his cooking show.”

Jiang Cheng huffed, not wanting to admit that Nie Huaisang had a point. At any rate, the commercials were over and the show was continuing; he had better things to do than listen to Nie Huaisang talk, like watch the television.

After a few moments, his face began to turn purple.

“Oh,” Nie Huaisang said, and buried his face back into the pillows. “Oh no. Oh no.”

“I cannot believe him,” Jiang Cheng said. “I can’t – he can’t –”

“Now, now,” Nie Huaisang said between laughter so hard that he was hiccupping. “Be nice. If Wei Wuxian is the despotic Chef Cultivator and - oh this is terrible - Grandmaster of Demonic Cooking, that is on the hunt for a chef worthy of being his successor by forcing teams to challenge his stable of in-house chefs, it only makes sense that the ‘challenger’ team would be protected by the – by the –”

Jiang Cheng closed his eyes. “Lightly-Braised Lord?”

“That!”

“I would say that I can’t believe Hanguang-jun agreed to this, except he hasn’t said ‘no’ to Wei Wuxian in centuries,” Jiang Cheng said bitterly. There was a reason he refused to live with them. “This is a disgrace.”

“Accurate, though!” Nie Huaisang said, grinning. “That’s a very mild flavor of cooking, very appropriate for Lan Wangji.”

“I think you mean tasteless.”

“I mean, Lan Wangji is that, too, at least when it comes to Wei-xiong”

Jiang Cheng couldn’t exactly say that that was wrong.

They continued watching.

“Oh no,” Nie Huaisang said a few moments later. “The Ghost Pepper General. Poor Wen Ning!”

“It doesn’t fit,” Jiang Cheng said with a sniff. “He has no flavor profile.”

Maybe he was getting more into this than he would be willing to admit.

...he wasn’t going to admit it out loud anyway.

Nie Huaisang sniggered. “I hope Wei-xiong isn’t the judge.”

Jiang Cheng stared at the screen. “I still can’t believe this is actually happening.”

“I love it,” Nie Huaisang said. He was now scrolling on his phone. “The internet agrees with me, apparently. It’s a hit!”

“It figures.”

Their phones gave a chime at the same time, indicating a message on their group chat.

“Huh,” Nie Huaisang said. “That was the notable Chef Cultivator himself.”

“Oh, I bet it was,” Jiang Cheng grumbled, making no move to reach for his own phone. “What does he want? To apologize?”

“No, to offer us walk-on roles in the event he gets renewed for a second season.”

“Absolutely not,” Jiang Cheng said at once. “I refuse to be known as the Sandwich Shengshou or whatever he comes up with.”

Nie Huaisang dissolved into giggles. “Oh no. He would, too!...I wonder what I’d be?”

Jiang Cheng huffed. “You’d be – the Saltshaker. Obviously.”

“Oh noooooooo…”

[pharahsgf]

Idea leading from post you just reblogged: I feel like a lot of fanon JC stuff comes from the misconception that WWX doesn't understand JC? Like, WWX straight-up says in Guanyin Temple, "I know you will hold on to this tight," and the fandom goes "he doesn't understand that JC will hold on to it! That’s why he’s responsible for their current broken relationship!" Or with the GC transfer, WWX says JC is very competitive and will never be content with being a normal person (the latter of which JC said himself), but in the fandom it's "JC just needed his family, not a core!! Why doesn't WWX understand!"

Or even with the Wens, it's "Why didn't WWX say A-Yuan was practically JC's nephew now," or "Why didn't WWX ask for help!" or whatever, when no, WWX understands perfectly well that JC won't help. The words came straight from JC's mouth. WWX has lived with JC for years, he's not oblivious (despite what fanon claims). He has a good bead on JC’s character

(Of course, when it's the opposite, and it’s JC making claims about WWX's character, the fandom tends to believe JC despite a lack of evidence -_-)

(re: this post)

tbh! a lot of fan content posits that wei wuxian misunderstands jiang cheng's motives & underestimates his willingness to do good (or his love for wei wuxian), but wei wuxian does know how jiang cheng thinks and what he cares about, and is canonically able to correctly predict how jiang cheng will react to things or what he'll focus on in a given situation. like there's a reason wei wuxian gave away his core, or lied to jiang cheng about it, or brought the wens to the burial mounds rather than the safety of lotus pier: he knew jiang cheng's reaction would be overwhelmingly negative and he accounted for that.

perceptiveness, intellect and high empathy are some of wei wuxian's most prominent traits like! we have scenes of him playing jiang cheng like a fiddle by invoking jiang cheng's fantasies which he rarely vocalises, and of him just straight up explaining jiang cheng's traits and worldview to other characters. he clearly knows how to read jiang cheng and what makes him tick, and when he decides he wants to be away from him, it's not because he misunderstands jiang cheng, but because he understands him enough to know he won't change. so the whole 'oblivious wwx' thing is just, absurd to me lol.

[tanoraqui]

okay I have to do this today because even I wouldn’t do it after the godforsaken finale airs, and it’s basically my specialty and I did spend like an hour thinking about it last night while washing dishes. Definitely partly inspired by @words-writ-in-starlight​‘s insightful post on everything Supernatural did wrong, and apologies in advance to all the characters for dragging them into anything related to Christian mythology:

Wei Wuxian’s parents die in a house fire when he’s 6(? I refuse to look anything up) months old

Jiangs are a hunter family I guess? That whole disaster of a family dynamic, except WWX dips out at some point to be idk an environmental activist bc at the time, that seems like the larger threat to the whole world. “Mom and Dad went on a hunting trip and they haven’t come back”, “bitch” “jerk”, 2 brothers in a beat-up old car, you know the drill

Jins are also an old hunting family, but more Men of Letters energy - they have a fancy bunker and do research and avoid getting their actual hands dirty. Jiang Yanli ducked out of the active hunting life a few years ago to be happily married to her peacock and settled down with a baby and she’s fine. We’re not going to bother Yanli. She’s safe and happy and doesn’t need to involved in any of this

so, WWX is the demon blood child developing exciting new abilities like telekinesis, mind control, exorcising demons by sheer force of will...etc, and Jiang Cheng is the Righteous Man. Lucifer, Michael, etc.

s1-3 probably proceeds more or less as spn canon...which I more or less remember...by the time they find their parents at the end of s1, Jiang Fengmian is...ugh, we probably shouldn’t kill him offscreen, I mean, we should probably meet him before he dies. I guess. Madam Yu lasts longer because I’m way more interested in her. But we do know that both Jiang parents are totally inclined to fling the boys into a metaphorical or literal escape boat and go hold the line for as long as possible, so...that’s spn energy...

Xue Yang is the one who’s like “fuck yeah, demon powers” and opens the gates of Hell, because I want him to have nice* things

*nice for Xue Yang

from characterization rather than memory, I’m 90% sure that Dean tried to hide his crossroads deal from Sam, but Jiang Cheng does it...better. I think it does come out, though. Right before the hellhounds do.

here’s where it starts to go farther off from spn canon. Jiang Cheng crawls his way out of the grave, gets stalked by a menacing presence that explodes windows for an episode, incidentally can’t find WWX...*Lan Wangji voice* “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition” (a baller line then and a baller line now)...and then the next episode starts with them all awkwardly standing around, and JC is like, “ok well let’s go find my brother then”, and you think there’s going to be an mdzs-riffing JC+LWJ Roadtrip To Find WWX...and they’re immediately attacked by like a dozen demons

in fact, the first time we see WWX in s4 is here, wherein he goes toe to toe with an angel and...holds his own. that’s new and terrifying! also is leading a squad of demons??

because here’s the thing: for the last 3(?) months, there’s been war in hell

because unlike Some People Mooses, upon finding out that his brother’s soul was legally nearly-owned by a crossroads demon, heir-apparent-to-Satan!WWX went, “actually fuck that” and kicked open the door of Hell (metaphorically, not loosing any demons this time) and was like, “who do I have to beat the shit out of to get a specific crossroads contract around here”

this did not work, obv. He didn’t know until it was too late, Lilith had already snapped up the contract, etc. etc.

obviously he also tried to offer himself instead, and got rejected for some reason

Since Jiang Cheng died, however, there’s been a war for control of Hell. Leading one side, Lilith, the Original Babe, who wants to break all 666(?) seals keeping Lucifer bound and in the meantime, break the Righteous Man so Heaven won’t even have Michael’s destined host ready for the Final Battle. Leading the other side, Wei Wuxian, infamous upstart, who wants to rescue the Righteous Man and restore him to life, tear Lilith’s guts out through her nose, and also stop her from doing the Lucifer thing because Wen Qing explained that yes, that’s a Thing, and it’s Bad.

Wen Qing! I’ve decided to combine Bela and Ruby’s roles and let WQ be both the cool badass example of how demon deals can go Bad and the demon deliberately leading our heroes astray for most of s3-4. Wen Qing is a very new demon; she used to be some sort of herbalist/witch but then she sold her soul in a crossroads deal to cure her brother of some lingering illness. 10 years of happiness and then boom, hellhounds. WQ is so obviously competent, though, that they (Lilith, I guess?) immediately offers her a job, with the promise threat that gee, that’s a nice brother you’ve got there, even with his Designated Chronic Health Condition getting all relapse-y. It’d be such a shame if something were to...happen to him...

we find this out at some point in last s3 I guess? some Monster of the Week case involves WN as a witness or something, or possible next victim, and WQ shows up to be A Normal Amount Of Invested In This, while desperately trying to avoid actually interacting with her brother (who thinks she’s dead). YES, the truth comes out; YES there’s a tearful reunion

now in s4, Wen Ning is fine actually, health-wise, bc he maybe made a crossroads deal with Wei Wuxian personally, and Wen Qing may or may not have admitted that she’s supposed to be working for Lilith to get WWX ready to host Lucifer? Or potentially that comes out later, idk. Either way, she’s 100% his top lieutenant in this exciting Hell War they’re waging

[insert whatever the hell (ha) happened plot-wise in s4 of supernatural]

we obviously mix up the relationships, too, bc it’s like, *LWJ internal monologue* I’m too young to remember my brother Lucifer as he was before he Fell, but surely Wei Wuxian is his Heir and Destined Vessel in truth, for he is Charismatic and Charming and Makes Me Feel Things, with his Clearly Feigned Righteous Drive and Compassion for All God’s Creatures and - why does heat keep pooling in the lower abdomen of my vessel when I look at his lips, which I am definitely doing a Normal and Not-Weird Amount - I’m just keeping an eye out for the famed Silver Tongue, and not in any way wondering how it would feel in my own mouth -

it’s actually DEFINITELY plausible for Lucifer to still be released even if our designated Heir Apparent is using his demon powers to his full potential and no one’s lying to each other about their motives. You just need to let Lilith be more scary too, and especially bc by “no one” I mostly mean Wen Qing; the angels are still totally hiding the fact that they, too, want to jumpstart the shit out of this apocalypse.  LWJ decides at the last minute that that’s a bad idea actually, gets himself discorporated to send JC to intercept WWX because he accidentally releases Lucifer, etc. etc. Oh yeah, the boys were def fighting before this, bc JC has actually fairly reasonable concerns about the sort of things WWX is getting up to in his quest to become King of Hell...

SO

...I neither know nor care what happens in s5

it does end with both Lucifer and Michael locked in the cage probably, bc I rather liked that solution. Fuck both of ‘em, basically.

I was toying with the idea that WWX also found Madam Yu in whatever hellish torment she was suffering after making a deal so her idiot son(s) would survive, and she was leading forces for him in the war against Lilith as well. If she came back to life somehow, body and all, it’d probably be compelling if she offered her own body to Michael - bc it’s her lineage! - and we’re all led to believe that she’s, uh, being a bitch and actually wants to risk destroying the world in order to destroy all demons...but then she seizes back control and flings herself/Michael and Lucifer into the Pit, because she’s just That Hardcore?

which means we’d actually have had her around and having characterization for most of s4-5, too, which would be fun

More importantly, it ends with newly crowned King of Hell Wei Wuxian appointing Wen Qing as Queen-Regent and ditching to go on an indefinite honeymoon with his new angel boyfriend (they’re going to fuck for like three weeks straight, then roll up their sleeves and go conquer Heaven in the name of free will), and Jiang Cheng gets to live out his hitherto-unknown-to-himself life’s ambition to be the sugar baby of the Queen of Hell. It’s very Hades/Persephone, except he goes back down to the underworld at least once a month. He gets his own demon squad whom he trains up in all the hunting techniques and it’s gr9. Wen Qing is reforming the crossroads deal process to make it more fair to the humans.

the end

Addenda:

it should go without saying but Jiang Yanli is definitely a recurring character, like, at least once a season there’s a filler episode where they go to Jiang Yanli’s for dinner and have to get along as a family, and also do the much easier job of defeating some sort of terrible demon that gets loose in the bunker and turns the evening into a horror movie. She’s their main research/emotional check-in person, a la Bobby, more often appearing in later seasons when there’s, uhhh, more to emotionally check in about.

Jin Zixuan is actually a perfectly competent hunter; he’s just a priss and we don’t Like him

we like Mianmian, though. Oh, I guess the official Hunter’s Guild or w/e tries to declare WWX a public enemy on account of the whole “King of Hell” thing and she’s like “actually what if you’re morons and assholes?” and joins hte team in s4 or 5? Yeah.

idk how the 3zun disaster happens in this ‘verse but I do encourage it to be happening in slow motion as a recurring subplot for several seasons. NMJ is a hunter, LXC is obv an angel, and JGY is...I wanna say one of the more human monsters, like a vampire? Or, you know, something that could be born from JGS sleeping with someone/something he shouldn’t have

[crossdressingdeath]

I think JC's requirements for a women are basically based around the exact opposite of his mother than trying to get someone like his sister. Pretty much every point except for "pretty" (and he likely means a soft beauty at that) lines up with that. I think he definitely saw YZY abusing her entire family (including his father), and wanted someone that didn't equal abuser, which is actually really sad. But then he had to be such a dick himself. (Because JC sees critique as abuse because of YZY.)

I mean, that sounds good and logical, but I feel it’s important to keep in mind that the canonical reason for JC’s requirements is that he’s incredibly shallow. Like, that’s literally it. He’s shallow. He wants to marry a supermodel to be his arm candy, and wants someone with zero personality or strength of will so that he won’t have to put any actual effort into his family life. Like, there is zero depth to JC’s requirements, he’s just that shallow! Also... I might be wrong, but I don’t get the impression that JC was super aware that YZY’s actions were wrong. I mean, apparently her actions towards him and JYL might not have been wrong and in fact were closer to like... normal Chinese motherhood? Which, I don’t know, it’s not my culture and I’m not going to disagree with actual Chinese people on the matter, all I know is that it feels wrong to me as a Westerner (which doesn’t really matter in terms of this conversation). YZY’s treatment of her blood children makes me personally super uncomfortable because of the whole “Your father hates you and you’ll never amount to anything” thing, but if Chinese people are saying that’s normal for the culture then... well I really can’t say anything to dispute that and I’m not going to. If nothing else it would make me a massive hypocrite if I talked about how important taking cultural differences into account is and then refused to take cultural differences into account. Anyway though, while I don’t want to make any solid judgement calls either way I am pretty sure that her treatment of her husband (pretty sure she’s supposed to be a lot less openly antagonistic towards her husband and sect leader) and WWX (as an authority figure over him) were not okay and JC seems entirely blind to that given he thinks his father was just mean for no reason and that WWX has no reason to hate any of the Jiangs to the point where he raised JL to believe that YZY wasn’t terrible to WWX and on at least one occasion outright laughed at WWX for getting whipped, so I suspect not wanting his wife to be like YZY for abuse reasons wasn’t a huge consideration.

[ohnobjyx]

so, i am from the west and before cql it never crossed my mind to check out c-ent (i guess that's almost universal for white people over here) but i started watching cql because there's a lack of lgbt media in the world and now i got interested as a consequence in the rest of c-ent and learning chinese, so i wonder if it could happen in ten years or so that the government realizes they can export lgbt content, suck people into c-ent, get money & so they might relax on censorship, could that be?

Hi, anon! Just for your info, your ask made me think a lot in the past few days. I’m happy to see that there are more people hooked on c-ent! If I’ve to be honest, I consume much more c-ent than western. There’s a certain beauty and poetry that it’s really different from western dramas.

Okay, there are several parts in my answer, so I’d like to tackle them one by one:

Background and language

LGBT content and public stance

Money (I strongly recommend you to read this one and the next, this is your answer, anon)

Success

If any of you are interested, click to see below the cut!

Disclaimer: except actual numbers (some are from official reports, others from articles), the post does have a heavy coating of “my opinion”. Beware.

1. Background and language

If I’m not mistaken, anon (if I am, I’d like to be corrected), you may have watched only CQL and maybe The Guardian, which is another fairly popular among int-fans (I haven’t watched it yet, no spoilers, please!).

These two had a combination of factors that made it easier for int-fans to accept them: fantasy world + well-received lgbt subtext (wangxian!) + less amount of poetic and lyrical language + the plot is surprisingly good (at least CQL from my knowledge). But it’s not the case of the rest of the dramas, and it may not be of the future BL dramas.

When I say “fantasy world” (c-fans often debate in which historical period CQL is based upon, but mxtx never bothered too much with that kind of details), I mean specifically that there isn’t a preexisting set of rules that the viewer may not know about. It’s often commented how CQL never explained how their world works (so a lot of it is fanon) and that viewers had to learn the niceties and the conventions of the world by watching the show.

It’d be a slight problem if the show was set on a historical period and even in a modern setting. C-dramas in general, since their target audience is Chinese, never bother introducing any kind of background or cultural convention. This would be just a little problem, after all, if watching tv shows contribute to our knowledge, we get an unexpected gain. But for many people, if the background or the references are difficult to understand, they may feel discouraged to keep watching it.

(And the rythm of the c-dramas is often extremely slow for western standards, since you have 40-50 episodes to develop a single story, instead of one season of 12 episodes). 

The main problem I see is the language barrier. Something I (and mostly c-fans that speak English or int-fans that speak fluent Chinese) marvel everytime I think about it is how people could stand the subtitles. I’ve yet to find good subtitles (though the ones from the official Youtube channel do a passable job and I’ve heard that on viki the subtitles are good too).

The meaning is often twisted (if not outright reversed sometimes), the poetry is lost, the difference between levels of formality is also blurred, the way Chinese people address each other is also not respected (I’m looking at you, Netflix subtitles). So you can’t ignore the damage the language barrier does to the reception of a tv series.

You’ve said it yourself, anon, that CQL made you interested in Chinese as a language. Chinese, from my point of view, is a fascinating language, but it’s so difficult to translate.

Among other things, the main language barrier is the use of 成语 (cheng yu). They are traditional idiomatic expressions, usually consisting in 4 characters, and originated from ancient literature. Commonly they are created by succintly paraphrasing or summarizing the original text, so they convey information a lot more compactly than normal speech or writing.

From what I know, there’s a logistical problem: a cheng yu of 4 characters is often read in around 1 second, but if the translator wants to include the most complete translation, that get all the nuances of the phrase, it can often end up in a long phrase that take quite longer to read (I saw once a cheng yu literally translated and well... 无语).

This use of chengyu spreads from historical to modern to fantasy tv dramas. CQL’s dialogues use less of them (the novel was plagued with them), making it easier to sub. They also make less use of poetry and literature references that so often appear in historical dramas (just the reference, no context whatsoever, I despair sometimes too), thus making it easier to convey to int-fans.

2. LGBT content and public stance

You wrote at the end: “the government realizes they can export lgbt content, suck people into c-ent...”

This would be assuming that the government acknowledges it is lgbt content. Which they don’t. 

When they were making the adaptation from the novel to the tv script, they were very carefully thinking of how they would introduce the series to the regulation department that controls everything that gets aired in China. In fact, the target audience they specified was “teenagers and youngsters” because of its xianxia themes, its fantasy world and the whole adventure after WWX’s resurrection (but we know that the real target audience was female and mainly in their 20s).

So officially, even though it’s based on a BL novel (and the general public knows it), the government only acknowledged it as an xianxia drama. Even if someone points the BL elements out, they are ambiguous enough that they can avoid the questioning. And since it brings money, as you say, they may turn a blind eye to the people who points it to them now.

There’s another point of your ask I want to highlight: “if it could happen in ten years or so...”. Ten years is a lot of time. I trust their society to take steps in a much more lgbt-friendly direction in our globalized world, and maybe things will be different in a decade’s time, when the younger, more open-minded generation starts to take over the control. Censorship will one day be relaxed or even disappear (from my pov, this is possible with more time and a great change).

(We can’t forget about the propaganda here... so I’m unsure of how this issue will develop in the future).

However, I don’t think the change will come from the government realizing that it is very profitable, and this is the last point I wanted to talk about.

3. Money

Disclaimer: it’s difficult to find out how much a tv series makes as a profit, since they keep making money to this day, this minute, this second. It’s also difficult to find the information, since I don’t work in the industry so I’d to make due with what I have.

I won’t lie, anon, when I saw your ask the first time, I thought: they have no need. You talk about the government realizing that they can earn money with lgbt series, but the reality is, CQL, while one of the highest earning dramas from 2019, it’s not the only one capable of that.

Recently it was issued the list of the Top 10 Most Influential TV Dramas of 2019, in which CQL was top 7. “Not bad!”, one would say.

I’ve taken the data from a few others so you can make a comparison in their profit.

A c-drama usually earns money by selling the license rights to different platforms, commercials and merchandising. In the case of CQL, you can add the concerts, fan meetings and the different events and articles.

Top 1 in the chart was 都挺好 (All is well, I really recommend this one, it’s one of the best dramas I’ve watched). This drama was aired from March 1 to March 25 in 2019. The data from April 3, 2019 is a copyright profit of 667,000,000 ¥ (a total of 14,500,000¥ per episode, the total of what 2 tv stations, Tencent, Youku and Aiqiyi paid for license rights).

Around the time CQL was finishing airing (on Tencent), the copyright profit was around 156,000,000¥. For transparency: this data is from August 20, and CQL finished airing on August 25, while All is well data is from a week after the finale. However, I doubt that in a week CQL could reach a profit of 500,000,000 ¥ to match the profit of All is well (I don’t know how much Netflix paid them for licensing rights, but it may be a similar sum).

Top 5 in the chart is 庆余年 (Joy of Life, in this one XZ had a secondary role). This was has a fanbase too in int-fans, though smaller than CQL’s. The company that’s the main stockholder for this series made a profit of 4,420,000,000¥  in 2019, approximately 48% is copyright profit. The series that brought more profit was Joy of Life, though, of course, they produce more series.

By the time they finished airing, CQL had made a profit of around 400,000,000¥ (estimated), with predictions of it getting to 800,000,000¥ (taking into account license, commercial profit, merchandising and the concerts). I haven’t been able to find how much they made in the end, but it must be around 900 millions to a billion yuans.

I know 800 millions it’s a lot of money (more than what I’ll ever see), but if you take it and compare it with the 667 millions All is well made with just licensing the series, one can understand that a series like All is well is much more profitable than CQL.

However, there’s no need to rank in the top 1 to get this kind of profit. 如懿传 (The legend of Ruyi), a series from 2018 that was the continuation of a drama that had been wildly succesful in 2011. It ranked 5th on douban, but didn’t make it to the top 10 chart of the most influential TV dramas (in spite of a superb leading actress and supporting actors, the plot and the poor production didn’t get it as high as it could have been).

BUT. Just license rights to 3 platforms made them earn 15,000,000¥ per episode. For a show that wasn’t as successful as people had predicted it to be, their profit is quite decent (the production cost was also quite higher than CQL’s, so maybe the net profit wasn’t so high for a 90-episode drama, but they didn’t fail in this investment).

Nonetheless, not everything revolves around money. In my opinion, more than direct economic profit, for CQL their main gain was the fanbase they amassed, that has skyrocketed the actors’ careers, let them make a lot of profit with merchadising and the concerts, and the series still profitable to this day. They have also contributed greatly to the increased presence and popularity of Asian content in the West, which isn’t a small acomplishment.

(As I’m writing this, I’m also watching last week’s episode of TTXS. Guys, the garlic commerce in just 1 county made a profit of more than 9 billion yuans in 3 months. Just so you all have a reference.)

4. Success

Nothing guarantees that a BL drama will be successful. Though there isn’t a lot of BL dramas, The Guardian and CQL aren’t the only (nor the first) BL novels to be adapted into tv series.

In fact, just in 2019, there were 59 BL media (novels, games, manhuas) to be adapted into TV series. Of them, 3 have finished filming and have been aired. Of the 59, I had only heard of Winter Begonia, which has a historical setting and the two male leads are famed actors (one of them is YZ, dd’s motorcycle friend). So just the BL theme doesn’t ensure the success of the drama.

And yet, we haven’t caught news of it here. I didn’t know there were so many (for a country that has a strict censorship, 3 BL dramas in a year is a lot) until I was getting information for this post.

That’s why, in my opinion, if someone said “hey, let’s relax a bit the regulation, since CQL was so liked by the fans”, others may say “but out of 6 BL dramas, only CQL was successful... so it must not be the BL theme after all”.

CQL has many many factors that makes it as good as it is, wangxian being one of the main reasons I fell in love with CQL, but it’s true that it isn’t the only key to its success.

In summary

(I appreciate it if you have been able to read until here).

CQL (and The Guardian, in a lesser degree) had a very distinct set of factors and conditions that made it possible for it to have great success with int-fans. However, there is a trend: only dramas that have been highly rated in China to start with were able to stand out in western countries as well. In my opinion, that’s because people aren’t so different: what the general public likes is very similar, no matter if it’s eastern or western countries.

In fact, CQL has been more successful among the same kind of public everywhere: mainly female, from around 15 to 30 years old.

Moreover, this target audience is very restricted. It’s just a matter of numbers that a drama like All is well, which target audience goes from mainly females from 20 to x years old, is more likely to be successful (yes, at my home, all of my aunts, my parents and I have seen the drama, while only I have watched CQL).

I think I sometimes ramble a lot, so I’ll write down my point here: the entertainment industry is profitable just with the Chinese audience. If a good drama ends up getting famous Western countries, is just 锦上添花 (“adding flowers to the brocade”) or “the icing on the cake”.

CQL is the exception, not the rule. As a drama last year, it broke a record, going on hot search for 49 days on a row in China. It’s a incredibly rewarding show, and, because of that, incredibly lucrative as well. However, since all its accomplishments are very rare, I don’t think this boom will be easily reproduced with just any other drama.

So, to answer your question about whether the profit they can gain with BL dramas would make them reconsider the censorship issue... why would they?

(I’d put everyone to farm garlic).

[satonthelotuspier]

🐰 Untamed Spring Fest 2020 🐰

Day 13 - Tendril - 1.5k

Post-canon developing SangCheng - follows on from this fic from the winter fest. This story runs parallel to the WWX & JC reconciliation arc, which is still awaiting it’s finale! But you can read part 1 and part 2 of that at the links if the idea interests you.

A Man’s Reputation

Nie Huaisang worked diligently in the small garden outside his house in the Unclean Realm.

He knew his brother, if he had still been alive, would have rolled his eyes and called it more of his nonsense, but it was soothing and restful, and if he tended it well, ensured these new budding tendrils clung to the wooden trellising he had built, he would be blessed with a beautiful, fragrant backdrop of jasmine.

The sweet scent would float in through the windows when he opened them in the mornings, and, with the other plants he’d carefully picked, including the blue and purple azalea, it would create a gorgeous blend of colours which he could translate to his paintings.

He hoped Jiang Cheng appreciated the addition of the purple, something that had been made as a bow to the man he loved. Maybe in future a lotus pond would be something he added, then Jiang Cheng would always have a little something to remind him of Lotus Pier when he visited. Times like now, for example.

The fair-skinned Sandu Shengshou sat out of his way, in the shade. Nie Huaisang knew from that idyllic summer in Cloud Recesses the other was careful of too much sun when he could be. It invariably made his nose burn pink, or brought out his freckles; sometimes both.

Personally Nie Huaisang had thought that freckles on the younger man were ridiculously adorable; but apparently ridiculously adorable was something the Sandu Shengshou was averse to being thought of these days.

Some men were so precious about their reputations, Nie Huaisang thought.

Although, as he had discovered himself, a reputation was a useful thing; something to hide behind, to plot from the safety of. Perhaps, similarly, it was a safety net for Jiang Cheng.

Once upon a time the Jiang Sect leader had cared, Too deeply. And he had paid the highest price. Now he presented a cold, unfeeling and bitter facade to the world that had beaten him down; if he didn’t care for anything anymore then it couldn’t be taken away from him.

Nie Huaisang knew he did still care though, he had eyes, sharper than most, and had seen how Jiang Cheng had reacted to Wei Wuxian each time they had encountered the other.

It had been like an old wound freshly opened again for Jiang Cheng every time they had met, raw and bleeding and so much more painful because it had been assumed the injury had healed over, only to have it torn open again.

Nie Huaisang understood; he thought he had been prepared to face Nie Mingjue again at the Guanyin Temple, but it had been like a fresh stab through his heart; years of practice at killing his reactions had been the only thing that had kept the agonised keen of torment from his lips. So yes, Nie Huaisang understood.

He had tried to offer his well-meant advice many months ago, and suggested, in an indirect way, that Jiang Cheng consider repairing his relationship with his shixiong, in order to let the past go and begin to move on.

Nie Huaisang had thought, hoped, it was time both he and Jiang Cheng stopped living in the past and looked forward to a future.

It might have been selfish of him, but Nie Huaisang wanted that future, wanted to be the future Jiang Cheng, that snarky, grumpy, yet deeply caring boy he had fallen in love with in their teens, wanted.

He had buried those sweeter feelings many years ago, as deeply as Jiang Cheng had buried his own, in order to survive. Impossible to think of love, of passion and tenderness, when you carried a heart full of secrets; a heart full of poison; a heart full of schemes.

But now, all accounts were settled, everything had played out, the world, or at least a select few in it, had seen through his facade to his rotten core, and all revenge was had. It was time for him to return to the precious things he had put aside during his quest for vengeance, and live his life for himself once again.

Jiang Cheng deserved that chance too. If he wanted it to be with Nie Huaisang, then even better.

The Jiang Sect leader had been, and was still being, encouragingly receptive to the tentative overtures he had made.

His gifts hadn’t been rejected, and indeed Jiang Cheng had sent some in return. He actively sought out Nie Huaisang’s company still; they had spent a lot of time together at the Lotus Pier discussion conference earlier that year, where he had offered his unsolicited advice on Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Cheng kept up that part of their relationship. He had even visited Qinghe more than had been strictly necessary, but so had Nie Huaisang visited Yunmeng.

It was promising, if he continued to build up their relationship as carefully as he did the jasmine, urge the tendrils of their mutual respect and regard to cling to the trellis of their continued interactions, perhaps he would eventually have a love bloom as beautifully as the jasmine he planned.

Like that jasmine, nothing would be grown overnight, however, it would require patience and careful tending. Jiang Cheng was a damaged man, indeed they both were, although in different ways. But Jiang Cheng had to be allowed to heal and grow his own feelings for them to have any genuine chance at the future Huaisang wanted.

If time had shown anything, however, it was that Nie Huaisang was willing to be a patient man, and play every move carefully.

He brushed the dirt from his hands, Jiang Cheng had been allowed enough time to brood this morning in the shade of his magnolia tree.

Nie Huaisang moved to the water butt and washed the dirt carefully from his hands. He wore some of his oldest, least beautiful robes for digging about in his new garden, and he longed to be armoured in his finest, and for a fan in his hand to hide behind. Unfortunately he needed a bath, and he wouldn’t sully any of his prized, precious fans or sumptuous robes with dirt from the garden.

And he genuinely needed to stop relying on them, at least in Jiang Cheng’s company. It would help to show his sincerity. And it was too late to hide his regard, he had played that tile already and if the other wasn’t aware then he was as beyond redemption for stupidity as his shixiong.

He walked over to Jiang Cheng, untying his sleeves. The other didn’t notice his arrival, so deep in thought he was.

“Jiang Cheng” he wasn’t sure when in their relationship they had dropped formality in private, but he liked it; he’d always thought of the other by his birth name anyway, probably due to hearing Wei Wuxian use it constantly in the Cloud Recesses.

The other startled a little and looked up, “Huaisang?” he sounded like he’d just woken up, and Nie Huaisang might have thought he’d been napping, except he’d had sight of him all morning and his eyes had always been open, just staring off into nothingness.

“Want to talk about it?” he knew the answer.

“Not really. I just...I did try to talk things over with Wei Wuxian, but I think I said something I shouldn’t have. I think he probably hates me more than ever. I...forget about it, please. Maybe I’ll be able to tell you later, when I’ve had more time to think on it”

Jiang Cheng had actually said more than Nie Huaisang had ever expected him to. Perhaps he too was trying to be a little more open. Nie Huaisang hoped so.

“Alright” he agreed, and reached over to touch Jiang Cheng’s wrist lightly. “You received a letter from A-Ling this morning?” he changed the subject, and Jiang Cheng nodded.

“Yes, some ghost or ghoul someone petitioned the Jin clan to deal with. I’ll have to leave tomorrow morning”

Of course, Jiang Cheng wouldn’t allow Jin Ling to act unchaperoned, even if he only watched from the shadows. Again, Jiang Cheng cared too much, and his nephew was his whole world, even if they bickered and argued and threatened each other constantly.

“Of course. Where will you go, afterwards?”

Jiang Cheng shot him a look, dark eyes half masked, “Likely back to Yunmeng, I’ve been away a while, and there will be things that need my attention”

I’m one of those things, Nie Huaisang thought, although there was no resentment in it. There couldn’t be, they both had myriad responsibilities that weren’t to each other; balancing those, and their courtship, was going to be one of the many difficulties they faced.

But no one had ever claimed life was simple.

“I could likely make time in a few months to join you” he suggested tentatively.

A ghost of a smile touched Jiang Cheng’s normally harsh mouth, “Please do, Huaisang, I’ll be looking forward to it”

[ailinaline]

The Untamed: unsorted

Well... I am nothing, if not eccentric, after all. Why not publish a huge post all of a sudden? :)

The Untamed (СQL) is an abyss, and I am still falling, grasping at some scattered thoughts... that tend to arrange themselves in equally chaotic blocks of thoughts, which, in turn, multiply questions successfully.

Spoilers ahead, I guess...

I.

The timeline of СQL is more than a little blurry, and when I try to calculate, how old Wei Ying was, when he died, I come up with the sorrowful conclusion he couldn’t be more that 21, probably younger. Which, in turn, means that the post-time-skip Sizhui is, actually, of the same age or even older than Wei Ying and Lan Wangji were, when they did a lot of things I honestly can’t imagine the new generation pulling off, even physically/magically, let alone psychologically (although I wouldn’t go as far as to call young LWJ and WWX mature - they clearly were not, and that was a huge part of the tragedy foundation, in my opinion). The young disciples are referred to as ‘children’, and they truly are. Compared to 16-17 year old LWJ and WWX, they are very, very young, inexperienced and not especially capable – while still being quite skilled and smart. And it’s both fabulous and painful to watch. Fabulous because it’s a very vivid and authentic demonstration of how exceptionally gifted LWJ and WWX are (and were); and painful because, unfortunately, not all of their greatness comes just from inborn talents.

II.

I am easily charmed by languages, but СQL, being the third Chinese dorama I have ever watched, is still the first one to so profusely tempt me to learn Chinese – in order to translate the songs and to understand the subtleties of the dialogues.

III.

I can’t get rid of the impression that the concept of rules/order breaking and punishment/atonement is fundamental for СQL (and its world). As far as I am aware, the Chinese culture does tend to be quite severe in this regard, but right now I am considering the symbolic layer of the process rather than the harm/good/efficiency of any particular method.  And I wonder, whether I am imagining things or Wangji’s history of ‘transgressions’ and punishments within his sect is really openly symbolic and not merely coincidental.

My interpretation certainly lacks some special cultural insight because I can’t help being of European origin, so I read all the codes as a European would, first, and only then make an attempt to switch lenses and decipher the message, taking into account my scarce knowledge of the Chinese (and Asian) culture.

And yet...

The first time (drinking) Wangji is not only completely innocent, but also a ‘victim’ of Wei Ying’s careless (and questionable) mischief. They share the punishment (and we encounter the number 300, by the way), but Wangji is obviously (and rather fiercely) on his own here, and evidently by choice, despite Wei Ying’s sincere efforts first to exclude and then to include him. Wangji, just as obviously, truly believes he deserves the punishment – not for drinking as such, I think, but for lowering his guard and being not attentive enough: internally, he substitutes one transgression with another, and the equation works for him (actually, it might be unfair, but quite fortunate for their future relationship that Wangji blames himself or, at least, blames himself more than Wei Ying). To put it in a nutshell, for Wangji, the system and order are intact and non-contradictory: he is understandably upset, even angry, but hardly shaken, and simply intends to do better than that in the future, so to say. It’s hard to speculate, if this is Wangji’s most unpleasant experience so far or not, but in any case, the psychological pressure is minimal and reproach is rather mild (and I am really surprised, Lan Xichen didn’t find all that story highly suspicious… or was it his indirect method of showing WWX that he hadn’t been told on?..)

The copying of the rules happens after a considerable amount of… experience, if not time. And the transgression is not specified, but hinted at very heavily. I also wonder, if Lan Qiren realized an additional message he conveyed through his choice as well as through his general treatment of his nephew during that meeting: a strict reminder that, a war hero or not, LWJ is still too young to have an opinion. Wangji accepts the book of rules reverently, accepts the punishment… the word, that springs to mind is ‘habitually’: he doesn’t disregard it, per se, he doesn’t devalue the fact his uncle is not happy with him, he still wants to do better, but… there are things of greater importance to him now, and LWJ is so focused on them that he makes the request about the restricted books at the least suitable moment, really. (And I believe this dismissal does cut him rather deep.) The system still works, but the seed of the conflict is already planted.

The third episode seems pivotal in itself: we actually don’t know, what the punishment for letting WWX and the Wens go was, except for having to kneel, while being lectured, but this time this is a result of a conscious choice to do something that definitely wouldn’t be approved. And I can’t remember a single second of the screen-time, when Wangji would look repentant: conflicted, upset, slapped (when Lan Qiren mentions his mother), stressed (his uncle uses some pretty cruel techniques that border on manipulation, to my mind), but not sorry at all – not for letting the fugitives go, at least.  And comparing the shades of Wangji’s silence here and on the previous occasion, this one seems somehow more determined. And closed-off. And there is no intention to do better, in regard to this transgression: the alternative he is being pushed to is unacceptable.

Kneeling again, for the whole day, in the cold, lifting a… what is it, as a matter of fact? It does look like a slightly smaller version of ‘the discipline whip’ we’ll see later, and if it is really so, then it’s beyond prophetic symbolic – it looks more like a promise on Lan Qiren’s part. :/ Anyway, my impression is that, for the first time in the series, LWJ is actively absent from the scene of his own punishment: he doesn’t reflect on it (I think he expected something like that), he also doesn’t mentally substitute one transgression with another to restore the balance (his inability to help Wei Ying is not something to atone for by kneeling). He simply endures. And thinks. And feels. Just not what he is expected and obliged to be thinking and feeling at the moment. And through all of this, Wangji is utterly, hopelessly and stoically alone and unaccepted. His concerns have been dismissed and care rejected by Wei Ying. His actions and decisions have been castigated by a significant authority figure (whom he loves and respects). If I am not mistaken, in the special edition Wangji’s loss-and-loneliness are somewhat artificially heightened through the pseudo-contrast because his moments are mixed with the moments of Wei Ying’s drinking with his new family, who values and appreciates him. (In reality their situations are just the same: they are both in anguish and feel helpless to change things they wish to change.) And, a cherry on top: we don’t know, what has been said initially, and by whom, however, we see that Wangji is released not by his uncle, but by some adept (or disciple). It might be a normal procedure, but it completes the picture of being unequivocally separated from any supportive figure and hints at a lack of closure, in a way, as there was no forgivenes-and-reconnection after the punishment.  

I am struggling to verbalize, why exactly, but to me, this scene is, in a sense, more bitter than the next one, despite the circumstances.

During the next punishment Wangji is as actively present as he was absent during the previous one. And if then he was frozen in sadness, now he is all fire (fueled by grief, and guilt, and fury, and despair, yes, but fire, nonetheless). And the system and order get burned down: what Wangji re-builds during his seclusion is his very own set of rules. They do coincide with the Gusu Lan set, but not fully. And this is a point of no return because, filtered through Wangji’s own system of values, now they are more than just the elders’ lessons learned and tested – they are the only valid reference point for recognizing transgressions and ‘living with no regrets’.

(On another level, I am more than a little puzzled by several details here:

1) linguistics: do they really call this thing a discipline ‘whip’ in Chinese?

2) cultural message: as literally nothing could get in the way of filming a beating with an actual whip, the type of instrument has to make some sense, doesn’t it? (For now, I can’t think of any reason to choose this tool, though. Except the number 300 as 300 lashes are hardly survivable, even with a golden core.)

3) application: I can understand, why Wangji has his shirt on (although this is a more dangerous and torturous option: such a thin layer is no protection at all, but it will be hell to clean the wounds afterwards), but why is his hair down his back like that?..

4) consequences: the scarring looks rather odd, considering. (And again: it was definitely not a problem to paint whatever they had to, so – why?)

The only (and vague) explanation I can come up with is that the type and form of the tool is not important at all: it’s the intent and sentence that count, so the wounds and pain would be the same, even if the instrument looked like a rod or a cane. (Still doesn’t explain the hair, though.) And as for the scars, perhaps, not all of them have to stay forever, especially if the cultivator is very strong.

Well, no: unsatisfactory...)

IV.

I wonder... My first impression after watching the scene, where Lan Wangji cuts off Jin Guangyao’s  arm, was that he was actually saving him from Baxia, separating Guangyao from the mark on his hand. And the only reason, why the spirit of the sword attacks Jin Ling next, are the drops of the bad/damned blood on the boy’s shoulder. But after the special edition I am not so sure.

V.

Lacunae and plotholes (or what I subjectively perceive as such) are extremely challenging and thought-provoking in this series. Right now, I wonder about the Wens: Wen Qing clearly stated she had asked one of the clansmen to look after WWX, so not all of them were going to surrender. Could it be that they were attacked at the Burial Mounds, when seeing the siblings off, and taken away by force?

...Enough. For now.

[rosethornewrites]

fic: remember the moments when we were together

Relationships: Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī & Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn

Characters: Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī

Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning, Memories, Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, wwx needs a hug, Regret, Self-Esteem Issues, Loneliness, Crying, Hugs, Truth, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Father-Son Relationship, Angst and Hurt/Comfort

AO3 link

Part of the try to praise the mutilated world series

Spectre | leaves eddied over the earth’s scars

Notes: The title is again from the poem "Try to Praise the Mutilated World."  I wanted to explore how this would impact SiZhui, who is only just starting to reconnect with his first adopted dad.

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

SiZhui feels awkward, standing with trays of food under the magnolia tree behind the jingshi. His father had asked him—almost begged, actually—to have lunch with Senior Wei today. The man wasn’t eating or sleeping well.

‘Grief,’ is all Hanguang-Jun said in explanation. 

SiZhui understands grief. He watched his father grieve for 16 years and was blessed to see it end. He himself grieved that same length of time for memories lost to fever and trauma.

It turned out they had been grieving the same person, mostly. Like father, like son. 

But now, as he watches Senior Wei sedately pet a rabbit on the porch of the jingshi, his normally sharp eyes distant and red-rimmed, his face pale… SiZhui remembers he’d seen this grief at the Burial Mounds so long ago, as the man had given up his entire world to protect him and the other Wen remnants. 

He’s so distracted as to not notice SiZhui’s presence, not even when he calls out.

“Senior Wei?”

SiZhui knows he’s been sitting there, unmoving, for probably the entire morning since Hanguang-Jun left to finish preparations for their journey to Yunmeng. Magnolia petals lay against his robes, contrasting starkly with the black fabric. Enough to account for hours.

He moves closer, repeating the greeting, to no avail. 

Surprising Senior Wei is never an excellent idea, would likely result in lunch being all over them. The man has spent too much time despised and fighting to survive, to fail to react if his attention isn’t drawn before SiZhui approaches. Enough of the juniors (including Jin Ling) have learned this by experience. And though the man only moves to defend, never to harm, SiZhui intends for this meal to wind up in their bellies. 

“Xian-gege?” he tries, but again meets no response. 

SiZhui sighs, not sure how to handle this. He went to Caiyi town for the food, ordering Senior Wei’s favorites, and though the talisman he’s attached will keep it warm, he knows it will taste better fresh. He’s even brewed his favorite spiced tea, the one with cardamom, fennel, ginger, cinnamon, and anise—what most in Gusu and especially Cloud Recesses consider far too piquant. SiZhui himself enjoys it with a little milk.

He takes one step closer, and notices something he didn’t before—Senior Wei has tear tracks on his face.

For a moment he’s seven years old again, peeking from the door of his room in the jingshi late at night, listening to his father play what he would later learn was Inquiry, watching him cry silently.

“A-Die!” wrenches from him before SiZhui can get ahold of himself.

He’s not sure whether the words or the tone do the trick, but Senior Wei jerks and turns to him with wide eyes. 

“A-Yuan?”

After a moment, he attempts a smile, but it’s a ghost of what SiZhui knows his smile to be, a mask like the one he wore all those months upon his return, something he hides behind. 

SiZhui places his trays on the porch, abandoning them in favor of wrapping his arms securely around the man who started his upbringing.

“I thought I’d have to call you a-Niang to get your attention,” he jokes.

The Yiling marketplace story represents the one time his fathers were together with him as a child, and he hopes to startle a laugh from Senior Wei. 

He is disappointed. The smile becomes a shade less forced, but only briefly. 

“Sorry, a-Yuan. How long were you calling for me?”

SiZhui reaches up to dab at his cheeks with a sleeve. He wants so badly to address Senior Wei’s behavior, but he doubts he’ll get him to eat if he does. 

“Only a couple minutes. I came to eat lunch with you. I even went to Caiyi town for your favorites and brewed your favorite tea.”

He’s unspeakably relieved when he gets a genuine smile from that, even if that smile is still tinged with sorrow.

“Ah, my handsome son is spoiling me so,” Senior Wei teases.

SiZhui laughs and repositions the trays. He pours the tea, then serves him first, then himself, covering the dishes to keep them hot after. Senior Wei’s food is a vibrant red, just the way he likes it, while his own is much blander though still spicier than what is usually preferred in Cloud Recesses. 

The movement of chopsticks from plate to mouth is a win, and he doesn’t mind when Senior Wei leans against him slightly, as though taking comfort in his presence. If SiZhui can offer that comfort, he will. 

Sitting on the wooden patio, eating in comfortable silence with the man he considers his first father, the man who had been lost to them all for sixteen years, is a comfort to him as well.

SiZhui isn’t quite sure how long he takes to realize the only noise is his own chopsticks against porcelain, but when he realizes he turns to find Senior Wei staring into the distance, a morsel of food suspended between chopsticks halfway to his mouth. His bowl is more than half full still. 

“Senior Wei?”

Senior Wei startles, the food slipping through his chopsticks and landing on his robe. He tries to smile again, but SiZhui sees the effort it takes.

“You don’t have to call me so formally,” he finally murmurs, the effort sliding away. 

“So I can call you a-Die? Even in front of the other juniors?”

The ghost-smile flits across his face again, and SiZhui wonders if that’s the most he can hope for right now. 

“Anytime you like. You can even call me a-Niang if you want.” Senior Wei sighs softly, setting his bowl back on the tray. “I’m sorry you went to such trouble for me, but I’m not very hungry.”

SiZhui has a memory of making a specific face at him as a toddler to get his way. Perhaps it’s Senior Wei’s influence at such a young age, but he’s just shameless enough to school his face into a worried pout.

“I’m worried about you, a-Die.”

He’s horrified when it backfires, and Senior Wei sobs. Where before his tears had been almost disturbingly silent, the raw emotion now is heart-rending.

Immediately he abandons his bowl, not even checking to make sure it stays upright, and pulls him into a hug. Senior Wei doesn’t fight it, just buries his face against SiZhui’s shoulder, shaking.

“I’m here, a-Die. I’m here.”

Senior Wei is murmuring apologies almost immediately, but SiZhui doesn’t dare let him go.

“It’s okay to cry, a-Die. You can cry as much as you need to.”

It was something Father had told him once upon finding him hiding to cry, letting him know that tears were not shameful, and the rule ‘Do not grieve in excess’ did not mean one couldn’t grieve at all. In those days, SiZhui didn’t know what he grieved, but Father had cried with him. It had helped.

“I don’t want to burden you,” Senior Wei whispers.

“You’re not a burden! Not ever. Father and I missed you so much all those years.” 

SiZhui is almost afraid to hug him more tightly, he seems so fragile.

“Father played Inquiry all the time,” he tells him, rubbing his back in slow circles. “He never stopped searching for you, even though you didn’t respond.”

From the way Senior Wei stiffens, he wonders if Father never told him that. SiZhui hopes he hasn’t overstepped.

“He never told me that. I never heard it,” Senior Wei finally whispers. “I don’t think I was in any condition to hear it.”

SiZhui feels frozen; there aren’t many reasons a spirit would not hear Inquiry, and one of those is moving on. The others are too horrible to think about. But this is a-Die.

“A-Die… Tell me? Please?”

He almost doesn’t want to know, but he can’t try to help if he doesn’t. He will not let ignorance be an excuse, not with a-Die suffering.

Senior Wei is quiet for several minutes before he finally speaks. “A-Yuan, do you know how I died?”

“Sect Leader Jiang,” he answers immediately. 

It was taught to all disciples, something he finds horrible now, that duty calls to kill a brother if he turns to evil. Knowing the truth of everything and regaining his memories, SiZhui wanted to be angry at Jiang WanYin. Only the man looked at his once-brother with complicated emotions that included longing. He knows it is not his place to judge. 

But Senior Wei shakes his head.

“After shijie… watching the whole cultivation world fight over the pieces of the seal, greedy for power… Everyone was dead, and I thought you were too, and I just didn’t want to exist in this world anymore.” 

Senior Wei shudders, seemingly lost in memory. 

“A-Yuan, I was a suicide. I threw myself off a cliff at Nightless City.”

SiZhui can’t stifle a gasp. He feels like the earth has opened up under him. 

“Lan Zhan tried to stop me, tried to save me, but I didn’t let him. It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done to him.” 

His voice hitches.

“I don’t remember the sixteen years I was dead, but I suspect my soul shattered at my death, so I doubt there’s anything to remember. If Mo XuanYu hadn’t forced my soul back together through the ritual, the pieces likely would have eventually just faded away.”

SiZhui hears a sob, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s come from himself. It was too horrible, that a-Die could have gone forever, that Father would forever be without him even in future lifetimes, and that the cost to prevent that was Mo XuanYu’s soul. The grief he carries is so much more understandable now. 

“A-Die, please don’t leave us again,” he whispers.

Senior Wei wipes at SiZhui’s cheeks gently with his sleeve, looking at him with regret. “I didn’t want to come back, at first. But I don’t want to leave now.”

He blurts, “Why wouldn’t you want to come back?” before he can stop himself. 

A-Die’s tears overflow again. “My shijie was dead, my nephew orphaned, my fault. My shidi hated me. I failed the Wens. The sects wanted my head on a platter. I thought Lan Zhan despised me, too. I was alone, and the world sucked, and I’d just cause trouble again. Why come back?”

“Father never hated you,” is all SiZhui can think to say in response. 

He wants to say more, that a-Die doesn’t cause trouble, that he wasn’t responsible for Jiang YanLi’s death or even Jin ZiXuan’s. There’s so much he wants to say, but words escape him. He knows a-Die still blames himself, and there’s nothing SiZhui can say to change that.

“Ah, a-Yuan. I know that now, but I’m, well, an idiot, so that took a while. But that’s why I ran away from Mo manor, and why I wore that mask. I thought nothing good would come from being recognized.”

SiZhui returns a-Die’s earlier gesture, wiping tears from his cheeks. 

“But things are better now, right? Why are you so sad?”

A-Die sighs softly. “Shijie is still gone. Jiang Cheng still hates me. It was so long ago for everyone else, but not for me. For me, it will be her first birthday since her death.”

That a-Die missed sixteen years is an ever-present facet of SiZhui’s life, an absence that spanned most of his life, but sometimes it’s easy to forget the impact on a-Die; he’s only been alive again for less than a year, and much of that time was taken uncovering Jin GuangYao’s crimes and then travelling for a few months alone. 

“That’s why you’re going to Lotus Pier,” SiZhui murmurs, realizing. “I’ll come with, a-Die. So you’ll have both Father and me with you.”

He knows a-Die hasn’t visited his home but once since he came back, that there are painful memories he must deal with. He doesn’t want him to face them, not alone. And while he’ll be with Father, SiZhui knows it can help to have more people, especially since a-Die feels Sect Leader Jiang hates him.

“You’re not alone, a-Die. You’re not.”

A-Die gifts him with a smile, a genuine one, and SiZhui lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“A-Yuan, you’re such a good boy.”

They stay like that, a-Die draped across his lap, and SiZhui remembers once, long ago, Aunt Qing telling him Xian-gege missed his sister. He remembers lotus seeds and blossoms, and a-Die barefoot with a smile. The memory is vague, pieced together flashes, but it’s there. 

Lotuses had grown in Burial Mounds. Surely they could grow in Cloud Recesses, perhaps in one of the grassy areas behind the jingshi, somewhere a-Die could look and be reminded of his sister, even though she’s gone. While at Lotus Pier, he’ll learn how to grow lotuses. He’ll find out what kind a-Die would like best, even if it means talking to Sect Leader Jiang about it.

SiZhui glances down and finds that a-Die has fallen asleep against him, the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced than usual, and he resolves to stay still until Father comes, to let him sleep.

Maybe later, together as a family, they can get a-Die to eat more, help him through his grief, remind him he’s truly not alone.

He won’t ever be alone again.

[butterflydm]

The Untamed Rewatch (ep 3)

Previous Episode | Index | Next Episode

aka they are all babies and I can't protect them

What stood out on rewatch (contains spoilers for entire drama);

We get several introductions in this episode. The first is to Mian Mian. I love Mian Mian both for herself and as a parallel for Lan Wangji. For now, I will talk about how their introductory scenes parallel but it happens with them a lot, so this will not be the last time.

Both Mian Mian and Lan Wangji are trying to abide by the rules of their sect and do what their sect would want them to do. Wei Wuxian would like to talk them into making an exception, please. In both cases, Mian Mian and Lan Wangji do consider his arguments and accept his case (Mian Mian in the same conversation and Lan Wangji going up to talk to his brother after the path introduction). Mian Mian and Lan Zhan are both generally rule-abiding but also reasonable. 

Jin Zixuan doesn't actually speak much in his scenes. On the heels of the Mian Mian scene, he is coming across as a second parallel for LWJ but a different side of LWJ. He does still come across as arrogant but in my rewatch, I'm wondering how much of that is genuine vs him just not speaking up when other people assert how they believe he's feeling. Which is something LWJ certainly also does.

Also, WWX's blatant disrespect of Jin Zixuan both as a person and for his position really stood out to me in rewatch. He's very deliberate about it, both in words and actions.

I also wonder if JZX might have been deliberately wanting to talk to Jiang Yanli before she left, but he wasn't able to come up with words before his attendant 'helpfully' arrived to tell him he went to the wrong room. Same attendant does a lot of talking for JZX in the earlier confrontation too.

Then WWX arrives and takes over the situation again. 

Much like LWJ, JZX seems to have a difficult time expressing himself in words, and he has no idea how to handle WWX's entire personality. 

Also: is it possible that, like his mother does later, JZX wonders here if there's potential romance vibes between WWX and JYL, since WWX kind of dominates the conversation? I'm going to keep an eye on JZX's future reactions to WWX and see what I see.

Okay, so they start to set-up the additional drama-only scenes early, from what I've read, in the original novel, the Emperor's Smile scene is Wei Ying and Lan Zhan's first meeting.

So, what purpose does this brief intro scene serve and why add it? I think part of the reason is narrative cohesion — they aren't going to flip and and forth between the past and the present so they need to set out a clear storyline. And it creates that parallel between Mian Mian and Lan Wangji. Plus, it begins the set-up of the corrupted metal storyline. We get to see the beginnings of the interactions between WWX and LWJ but it's a very different vibe than their later solo talk, because they're in public. LWJ reacts to WWX a few notable times in the conversation  — he hears WWX say the body is cursed, not dead, and that's what makes him turn around. He also hesitates on the path once he's out of sight, making the decision to go talk to his brother. 

The campfire scene with Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng has two particularly interesting moments — we do have Jiang Yanli mentioning that WWX won't keep messing around once things are serious, and we have Jiang Cheng saying WWX might be spending time with either a 'Mian Mian' or a 'Yuan Dao' which… is pretty heavy subtext that both that WWX is bisexual and that his siblings know about it which, for the purposes of the drama specifically, would inform how I might read the scenes where Jiang Yanli or Jiang Cheng react to WWX and LWJ's interactions. So, I'm going to take that interpretation into account in the future. That is also, as I understand it, a departure from WWX's characterization in the novel during this time period, but given that they couldn't do a 'queer realization' on-screen due to censorship concerns, this seems like a really clever side-step.

Then we have WWX breaking into the Cloud Recesses and the rooftop fight and it is… so gorgeous. It's a dynamic and beautiful scene that is filled with little character moments and interactions that will matter down the road.

Lan Zhan. Omg bb. Not every problem needs to be solved with your sword. The image of LWJ putting his sword in front of WWX is going to be very common, so it's fun that the first time is a threat and not protection.

WWX trying to bullshit/charm/bribe LWJ to let him in. I love it.

WWX tries so hard to save his alcohol.

The boys each learn that they've met their match, talent-wise. The implications we get at various points are that there isn't a lot of real competition for either of them, until they meet each other.

It's just… it's just really good. Poor LWJ has never felt so simultaneously annoyed and turned on by someone before, I’m pretty sure. Who can blame him tbh?

Also, so: rooftops. They have their ‘first’ fight on a rooftop and their ‘last’ fight on one as well. I’m gonna think about that for a little while.

Oh, man, the punishment assigning scene is also priceless. Lan Xichen finds WWX both charming and intelligent and is intrigued by how much WWX affects his brother's normally calm attitude. Lan Qiren can tell WWX is smart but you know he's thinking "but at what cost?". The moment when WWX clunks his sword down against Lan Qiren's desk and is glared at is hilarious.

You can just really see how different the expectations are for WWX in Yunmeng than the expectations are in Gusu. WWX is good and smart and kind, even this young, and from his perspective, the Gusu rules are so rigid and arbitrary. But for people who thrive on structure, having rules can be helpful. It depends. The rules will definitely come up again.

Then we met Wen Qing!

I mean, Wen Rouhan is also introduced but w/e, Wen Qing is the important one here and we all know it. So, this will come up later and in more detail, but my reading of Wen Qing and WWX's interactions as a whole is that they remind each other of their respective big sister/little brother sibling relationships, so that's the lens I look at them from most of the time. If I recall correctly, they each get at least one scene where they look at the other one and explicitly flashback to thinking about their sibling. 

Here, we establish that Wen Qing is under WRH's thumb and is not thrilled about it, but is made to feel grateful (she’s also not thrilled about that), and even when I was watching the first time, I didn't think she would end up permanently on WRH's side.

The scene with Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji is a good follow-up to the punishment scene earlier -- LXC has noticed that LWJ has a strong reaction to being around WWX and encourages LWJ to explore that potential friendship. I love how genuinely concerned LXC is that his brother might be lonely and overworked.

Our last introduction this episode is to Xue Yang. Here, he’s mostly interesting to me for how his lack of fear contrasts against Wen Qing's concealed terror in her scene with WRH. Xue Yang has no positive connections, nothing he needs to protect or shelter. He doesn’t have anything to lose, so he can play hardball against WRH without any concern. Wen Qing has her brother and her village, both of which are essentially being held hostage against her good behavior. 

Xue Yang also mentions here his lack of ambition for power, which contrasts him against WRH but is one of the ways he is a parallel to WWX. Xue Yang was happy enough living in a city of corpses with no real luxuries. WWX is perfectly happy being a lotus farmer or rogue cultivator. Neither of them need the trappings of wealth and power, because both, perhaps, are so aware from their childhood of how easily that can disappear?

It's something about WWX that most of the Sect leaders have a hard time believing, that WWX doesn't want to be wealthy and powerful for its own sake. WWX uses his power but doesn't hoard it just for the sake of having it. He was never interested in challenging Jiang Cheng for the position of heir or to displace him as Jiang sect leader.

Which isn't to say that Xue Yang and WWX aren't competitive — they enjoy flexing their power and enjoy being 'the best' but there's no power-based endgame they care about. They aren't interested in ruling the world.

What people value and how that affects their choices is definitely a big theme in the series as a whole -- do you value your family name? Your reputation? Wealth and power? Helping people? Staying true to your own convictions? And whatever you pick affects whether or not you can keep the other things. WWX didn’t give a fig about his reputation and so he ended up with a very negative reputation that impacted both his relationships and what he was able to accomplish in the world of cultivation politics. Reputation is social currency, and WWX ended up losing all of his.

But that’s a while ahead.

Next time: more introductions!

Previous Episode | Index | Next Episode

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt four: Nie sect was always weird, so nobody thought that much about second wife of sect leader Nier. Later it was very clear that sect leader Nie and NMJ love that clearly non human woman and her non human baby. So everyone tried really hard to ignore baby shadow monster that just lives at Nie sect. It continues when NHS goes to Gusu and it makes WWX wonder if because of it JC did not catch that his crush is not a human. JC thinks that he is just jealous for not having cute shadow bf.

“So what you’re saying is that you’re jealous,” Jiang Cheng said, and Wei Wuxian spluttered.

“I’m not jealous!” he exclaimed. “Where are you getting that idea from what I said?!”

He’d only meant to point out to Jiang Cheng that Nie Huaisang, as nice as he seemed, wasn’t quite…right.

The way he sometimes seemed to fade into the shadows as they walked past, fade entirely until there didn’t seem to be any difference between the darkness and him, only to reappear just as normal on the other side. The way he sometimes seemed to appear places he shouldn’t, and seemed a little confused by the concept of doors.

The way things he didn’t like seemed to just – disappear.

The way no one else ever talked about it.

Wei Wuxian would’ve thought that Lan Qiren, at least, would’ve said something, anything, when he threw his ruler at Nie Huaisang and it disappeared right before it was going to hit his forehead, but the teacher didn’t so much as blink, only barked at Nie Huaisang to return the ruler after class. Lan Wangji hadn’t said anything either, and he must have seen it, he was sitting right next to them. But he didn’t say anything, either!

And now Jiang Cheng was spending extra time with Nie Huaisang, sneaking out, studying together, going on long walks late at night, somehow, despite Nie Huaisang’s tendency to fade in and out if he happened to not be in a direct patch of moonlight…

Wei Wuxian just wanted Jiang Cheng to know about what was going on so that he could make an informed judgment, that’s all.

“How am I jealous?” he demanded again.

“You’re jealous because I got a pretty lover for the summer before you did,” Jiang Cheng said triumphantly, and – hey, what? Sure, they’d talked about getting together with someone during their lessons, taking advantage of being far from home, but this wasn’t about that! Also, since when was Jiang Cheng willing to cut his sleeve?! “Just because Lan Wangji won’t tell you the time of day –”

“It’s not about that!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. “And anyway, I’m not pursuing Lan Wangji!”

“Yeah, right. You talk about him all the time.”

“I do not –”

Okay, maybe he does.

“And anyway he’s not –”

Actually, he was that pretty.

“But he doesn’t –”

Jiang Cheng was right about not giving him the time of day.

“…fuck,” he concluded. “I’m trying to date Lan Wangji and I’m failing.”

Jiang Cheng nodded.

“Wow. I hate that. Well, congrats, you won our bet about finding a lover first, bragger’s rights and everything, but also, getting back to the point, that wasn’t what I was talking about.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No! I didn’t even realize!”

“That’s true,” Jiang Cheng admitted. “You’re really oblivious.”

“Thanks,” Wei Wuxian said, rolling his eyes. “But speaking of oblivious, I’m still talking about the fact that, despite no one paying any attention to it, Nie Huaisang is some sort of shadow monster.”

“Half,” Jiang Cheng said.

“…what?”

“Half shadow monster. On his mom’s side.”

“Wait,” Wei Wuxian said. “You knew?”

“Of course, everyone knows,” Jiang Cheng said. “The second Madame Nie was, uh…how did Mom put it? ‘Special’?”

“Wait,” Wei Wuxian said. “Was the first Madame Nie also ‘special’? Because I’ve seen Chifeng-zun from a distance, and he’s, like, a giant.”

“By all accounts, the former Sect Leader Nie had weird taste. I don’t think we know for sure about the first one, but we’re sure about the second – according to Mom, she didn’t even bother looking human-shaped sometimes, but it didn’t keep the old Sect Leader Nie from looking at her like she was the prettiest thing in the world even so.”

Madame Yu probably thought it was sweet, insofar as she ever thought anything was sweet.

Wei Wuxian didn’t even begin to pretend to understand women.

Hmm, maybe he really should try cutting his sleeve. If only Lan Wangji would be more amiable…

“So what you’re saying,” he said, instead of coming up with a whole bunch of new plans now that he knew what his intention was, “is that you know that your boyfriend is a shadow monster – or, half a shadow monster – and you’re okay with that?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty neat.”

“It’s awesome,” Wei Wuxian agreed, enthusiastic now that he at least knew why everyone else was ignoring it. “What can he do? I want to know everything!”

[crossdressingdeath]

JYL wasn't there, except for in CQL which I never count because they didn't take the wider ramifications into account when they changed things (and in CQL... god, I'm not all that fond of her as a character but I can't blame WWX for deciding not to force her to choose between two people who at least on the surface she loves equally), and JC would've died before they could get to her, not to mention that even if they could get the two of them together that would've involved a long journey through enemy territory with at least one fugitive, and depending on how they did it they'd either have to drag JC's catatonic ass all the way to Meishan or do a round trip and bring JYL (a non-combatant) all the way back with them. It was WWX's consent or nothing. To use the coma patient example again, it's like saying they shouldn't be treated because their closest available relative (in terms of relation) was on the other side of the planet and couldn't be contacted before whatever put them in a coma killed them even though there were other available relatives who could be contacted. It's complicated, sure, but I don't think "skeevy" is the right word. (Not to mention the question of "to what extent do modern medical ethics even apply to this setting where all the characters kill countless people with no moral judgment from the text or the audience anyway" or the question of "what does it matter when no one involved is upset about the lack of consent", which are both definitely things to consider.) Also the right to die isn't necessarily applicable here, I'd argue; JC is suicidal because he doesn't have a golden core and doesn't want to live as a normal person rather than because of any ongoing thing in his life or even the general clusterfuck that is the current situation as a whole, so getting him a new golden core will completely solve the issue at hand. If someone is suicidal because of a fixable situation, I'd argue attempts to fix said situation should be made before considering suicide as a good option; it's not like WWX is force-feeding JC and telling him to get over himself, he's offering a totally valid solution to the problem that's making JC want to die.

Also, WWX is actually quite aware that JC would agree with it; it's his narration that says JC would do anything for a new golden core, after all, and I don't see any reason to assume that he's speaking in hyperbole. He's just also very aware that JC would react badly (which makes sense, given JC reacts badly to... everything WWX does, good or bad), and so kept it to himself to ensure JC wouldn't find out. And probably didn't tell JYL (or anyone) to avoid the awkward situation it would put them in; WWX doesn't like upsetting people, so he wouldn't want to tell anyone (but especially JYL) what happened when he knows it would upset them and wouldn't change anything. Not to mention the concern of "the more people know the higher the risk of word getting back to JC" and the fact that WWX wouldn't want to force JYL to keep secrets from her brother. Remember, WWX is surprised by how violently JC reacts, not necessarily by the content of JC's complaints, and JC does not get upset about the lack of consent; he's upset because 1. WWX has outdone him permanently, 2. all his achievements are now tainted (in his mind) by the fact he couldn't have done them without WWX (which is kind of funny, given he'd be long dead without WWX and that's not a secret so he should've already known that he wouldn't have achieved all that stuff without WWX (not to mention... you know, his greatest mentioned achievements are 1. killing WWX (well, taking credit for killing WWX) and 2. being a serial killer, neither of which WWX exactly wants to be a part of)), 3. WWX apparently hasn't given enough to his family (which I assume is what WWX is most surprised by, given... dude, what?), and 4. now JC has to feel bad about the whole betrayal and mass murder of WWX's family thing. And also the fact that he didn't know makes him look like a clown, I will never be over JC saying in the ExR translation that he looks like a clown now, god I hope that gets into the official translation.

Basically, I can see why you'd find WWX's actions questionable? But personally with all the stuff I've mentioned plus the situation (his sect is gone, his sister is on the other side of the country, his brother is dying, he's deep in enemy territory, the Wen sibs are currently putting their lives on the line to protect him and they won't be able to hide him and JC forever...) I really can't blame him for taking the only chance he could find to get out of this mess with even a chance of JC living through it.

As for LWJ and WWX... you know, thinking about it I genuinely can't remember. I might be mixing up novel canon with CQL canon again, it's been ages since I watched CQL beyond at most skimming through some of the later LSZ scenes and I've read the novel... many times.

So much of WWX not knowing about LWJ’s feelings when they were younger was such a combination of things, and one of the few good portrayals of miscommunication.

Young LWJ had no experience with even having close friends and was horrible as getting his feelings across once he knew he was in love with WWX. Meanwhile, WWX had no idea yet he had a crush on LWJ since he thought he only liked girls, and he had JC outright lie and say multiple times LWJ doesn’t like him. WWX already had some insecurities as a teenager, and the combination of LWJ not being able to express himself and JC words made him doubt a lot of things.

Then there was the fall of Lotus Pier that was basically the start of WWX’s own fall. Even if he was confident LWJ liked him even as a friend, he could no longer afford to let him close. He couldn’t tell LWJ why he created Demonic Cultivation, he couldn’t tell about the Golden Core transfer, he couldn’t even think of confiding in him even though he still held a lot of trust and respect for LWJ.

WWX’s first life was the best reasons to have miscommunication happen so it’s believable why they never got together earlier or realized each other’s feelings, but also the best example of “right person, wrong time”

Oh, absolutely! It's not miscommunication for the sake of ~drama~, it's miscommunication because that is the only thing that makes sense in the situation. Of course there's a failure to communicate between LWJ and WWX, have you seen the state of these two's lives? Their situations are so different that they just don't know how to interact in a way that would let them make their feelings plain!

That's actually one of the major issues I have with CQL, because by making them friends earlier the writers completely destroyed that set-up of them being just so different and having been raised so differently that they just don't know how to communicate; it goes from "right person, wrong time" to every shitty sitcom ever. There's no longer a reason for the failure to communicate that ends up screwing things up until WWX gets resurrected; they just... don't communicate. Because that's what the story demands. It's infinitely weaker as a plot point.