#and with that fact maybe wwx is the first one to be kind to them even counting the living portion of their life

[mxtxfanatic]

The return of Wei Wuxian after his 3-month disappearance is meant to evoke this terror and sense that something is wrong, and it definitely does, but like…

Do you not see the playfulness in which Wei Wuxian handles the ghoul child mirrored in how he later handles A-Yuan in the Burial Mounds?

A white child squatted by his feet. Like a young, carnivorous beast, it was gnawing on something that Wei WuXian fed it. Wei WuXian took his hand away after patting on the white ghoul child’s sparse-haired head.

—Chapt. 62: Evil, exr

Lan Sizhui replied, "I'm not sure either, just that when I saw Chenqing, I thought that it was extremely familiar......" It was unsurprising that it was Chenqing that made him remember. Wei Wuxian said, "Oh, of course you'd find it familiar, back then eating Chenqing was your favourite habit and you would drool all over it and make me unable to play it."

—Chapt. 111: Wangxian - Everyday Means Everyday, chiaki_himura

Do you not see the gentleness in which Wei Wuxian handles the blue-faced woman mirrored in how he handles Wen Qing when he takes her to the Qiongqi Path labor camp?

When she had been fighting, her face was almost hideous, but now, with her dark face against Wei WuXian’s lap, she somehow seemed to be a charming concubine, obediently pleasing her master. Giggling laughter came from her mouth as well. Wei WuXian sat leaning to one side, his right hand stroking her soft, long hair over and over again.

—Chapt. 62: Evil, exr

The shock that Wen Qing received was too strong. Finally, she couldn’t hang on any longer and passed out. Standing behind her, Wei WuXian caught her without saying anything, letting her lean onto his chest.

—Chapt. 72: Recklessness, exr

And then they both go on to reciprocate that care via over-protectiveness, even when Wei Wuxian isn't actively controlling them:

The curvature of Wei WuXian’s lips dropped slightly as he glanced at him. Jiang Cheng had also heard the dissonant tone, “Second Young Master Lan, what do you mean by this?” Lan WangJi’s eyes were glued to Wei WuXian, “Answer me.” The ghoul child and the blue-faced woman began to stir. Wei WuXian turned around and looked at them. They backed off slowly, reluctant, and sunk into the darkness.

—Chapt. 62: Evil, exr

After reading the entire novel and seeing how he maintains this same level of care towards everyone he has no antagonistic relationship with, alive and dead, how could I not be moved when circling back to reread this moment?

[whetstonefires]

So like, I'm pretty darn sure Mo Xuanyu did not actually make a pass at Jin Guangyao.

For several reasons, like for one thing hitting on your own actual brother who is also your boss is genuinely insane behavior, in a way nothing else we know about the guy actually matches, other than his reputation for being crazy which mostly seems to originate from the same point as the sexual harassment allegations. which tracks because even with rampant societal homophobia, that's such a crazy thing to do people would question it if it didn't come paired with the information that he's insane.

Then there's the fact that if that had actually happened, there's basically no way master spin artist jgy would have let it get out, because actually experiencing that would trigger his sense-of-uncleanliness issues so hard.

But what we see is that somehow Everyone Knows that it happened, but also that Jin Guangyao totally didn't tell anyone, because he's too merciful and kind and respectable. It just mysteriously leaked somehow that this private scandal happened.

(Also, to step up a meta level, the gay goth kid who was never quite accepted into his own family and wound up self-destructing was in fact guilty of the homophobic allegations spread by the powerful man who manipulates reputation for personal advantage? This is not the kind of story where that would be true. The thematic dissonance is too much.)

The only way it's believable that mxy made a move on jgy is if jgy spent a long time maneuvering him into it, hinting and deniably flirting and just generally being maximum skeeze, just a huge elaborate incestuous honeypot, just to bait a 'ruined reputation' trap. Which makes no sense at all.

I don't think jgy is necessarily above that kind of creepy grooming behavior but I do think he would hate it, and definitely wouldn't resort to it when sowing rumors would work just as well. and expose him to less risk.

So Mo Xuanyu didn't do it.

So what we've got is that Jin Guangyao systematically obliterated this kid's credibility.

No one would listen to anything he said after being expelled in that sort of context, especially anything against Jin Guangyao, whom he now has obvious motive to smear. This was a preemptive strike against some kind of leak.

It's exactly the kind of thing jgy would do--it targets individual vulnerability, leverages the weak points in Mo Xuanyu's reputation into gaping chasms, in a way that associates jgy with scandal but makes him personally look better. also shows signs of jgy projecting his own issues onto others. The MO fits.

And his motive is easy to construct: Mo Xuanyu had had access to his secrets, such as Wei Wuxian's manuscripts and probably a lot of the other ugly shit. And Jin Guangyao needed him silenced, due to some thing or other, but as with SiSi didn't want to have to kill him.

(A fascinating thing about jgy as a villain is the moments where he yields to sentiment pretty consistently contribute to his destruction.)

But then we come around to: so why didn't Mo Xuanyu sic Wei Wuxian on Jin Guangyao, then?

In cql wwx does have a curse cut for jgy, to keep him in the plot and create an additional open storyline to resolve, since viewers are gonna be denied romantic catharsis, but in cql the homophobia plotline isn't there because all the gay is censored, and mxy allegedly hit on qin su instead. which is less utterly unhinged to do though still big wtf.

In the book, mxy summoned the Yiling Patriarch just to kill the Mos. (Which he didn't even do lmao.)

So I've always been sort of poking at that, like if you're destroying your own soul to get revenge, why spare the person who deliberately ruined your life?

Even if he had done the thing, it was weird! Maybe even weirder; if you're in a headspace where making sexual advances anyone should be able to predict are unwelcome seems like a good idea in the first place, there's a pretty good chance getting punished for them isn't going to make you think you were in the wrong. Otoh there is a zone where he could have done it, gotten the backlash, cleared his head a bit, realized it was fucked up to do, and therefore not held a grudge in that particular direction, but it's still weird. (And also he definitely didn't do the thing.)

But if he was so angry, why was he not angry at Jin Guangyao? Who definitely kicked him out of the Sect, all else aside?

And then I looked at the passage in Jin sect where we swap to Jin Ling's pov and he tells us one of the few first-hand things we hear about Mo Xuanyu: He thought Jin Guangyao was the most amazing person in the whole world. He adored him.

And being betrayed and rejected by him didn't turn that into resentment. Even though he resented the other side of his family enough to want them gratuitously murdered.

So you know what I think happened?

I think Mo Xuanyu thinks it was an honest misunderstanding. That Jin Guangyao, his idol, falsely concluded that his gay little brother was creeping on him based on a misinterpretation of his admiring behavior, and was appropriately revolted. And that Mo Xuanyu doesn't blame him for it. He blames himself.

He went back to his mother's family to rot genuinely feeling like the ruination of his life was his own fault for being creepy. And died like that.

Because of that, to a considerable extent. How can you bend any of your will to saving yourself, to getting out of an abusive situation and seeking a better one, when you don't think you deserve to be saved?

Fucks me up.

[darkfalcon-z]

was WWX fixated on LWJ? I don't think that fixation or obsession are an accurate description of WWX's attitudes towards LWJ.

Sure he was fascinated with him, he found him inspirational and LWJ definitely left enough impression for WWX to remember him, but that's different from a fixation. He's drawn to LWJ when he's there, but other than that, as far as I can remember, there's like one scene in entire novel when WWX talks or thinks about LWJ (other than scenes other than immediately after encounters with LWJ).

It's in the Lotus Pods extra, which takes place months after WWX left Cloud Recess, and JLY, who is the most likely person for WWX to tell what's on his mind, reacts as if the information that there's any kind of meaningful relationship between WWX and LWJ is novel to her. Which suggests that WWX hadn't talked about LWJ and hadn't even though about regularly enough to bring him up with his Shijie. He outright asked her if she even heard of LWJ, which he wouldn't if LWJ was a frequent topic of a conversation between them. It to you but doesn't imply any sort of fixation, it's normal to randomly remember people you've spent some time with.

LWJ didn't have that much of a role in WWX's first life, they've met infrequently, for most of those encounters LWJ had been unpleasant to him. Not all fascinations with others are romantic or sexual. It that context it really wouldn't make so much sense for WWX to interpret his fascination as something romantic. Among other things it would be emotionally safer not to interpret it as romantic if the other person is frequently irritated by you and antagonistic.

I don't think WWX was oblivious either.

Once he develops actual friendship with LWJ, he very soon notices romantic feelings and, sure, he struggles for some time with his previous preconceptions, but it takes him only few weeks to sort out, which is exceptionally fast. He doesn't even have ready made frame of cultural narratives to help him recognise what's going on. This is short time to accept you're queer when your entire life you though otherwise. If you hadn't grown with accessible narratives about quires figuring it out can last months or even years from the time you've noticed first signs.

The notions that WWX examines in his head, like if he could become gay by occupying gay man's body, aren't some definitive statements of his beliefs or conclusions, it's just him processing and reflecting. It would be unnatural for anyone to jump from one set of conceptions to another without some processing.

It takes so much for WWX to believe LWJ likes him back, because he consciously doesn't want to make untoward assumptions about LWj, he's scared that he maybe projecting his feelings and hopes on LWJ and that if he's misreading the situation he'll lose their friendship. He tries to look at the situation from different possible angels and refuses to takes seemingly obvious assumptions for granted, especially when they contradict his previous observations. He's not oblivious, he's an over-thinker. By the time they had non penetrative sex for the first time he was 95-99% sure LWJ shares his feelings, and he was sure once they got frisky until LWJ reacted negatively, at which point he started panicking and overthinking. That's why he needed so much assurance.

Besides, LWJ is incredibly hard to read. People didn't in fact know he was in love in WWX. Even LXC seemed to only realise the extent of those feelings once LWJ defended WWX against his own clan. It was a secret very few people were actually aware of. Most though the two hated each other.

JC is shocked (and overwhelmingly disgusted) when he sees Wangxian together in Lotus Pier and realises all the homophobic insinuations he'd been making may in fact hold kernel of the truth. The things by that time WWX has it basically figured out, but the subsequent confrontation with JC makes him hesitate once again. But it's about the fear of pushing something socially undesirable on LWJ.

[letteredlettered]

All of your WIPs sound very intriguing. How about Man From Cloud?

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh thank you! For asking!

I don't think I'll ever finish this one but I'm in love with the concept. I wanted to write wangxian with either WWX or LWJ deaged, but I wanted all the angst. And I think that WWX is such that if you just de-age him into a kid post canon, you just get this happy go-lucky kid who seems like nothing's wrong. And he might say things that would hint at there being some very wrong things (either about living in the streets or about the Jiang household, depending on the age you pick), but I just feel he would not engage on that? Like maybe LWJ would be pretty sad about it, but WY would shrug and want to play. Meanwhile, post-canon de-aged!LWJ would be a very sad kiddo, but I don't think adult!WWX would engage with that either. He'd just spend all his time trying to get little LZ to crack a smile and avoid talking about any of the things that he knows are sad about LWJ's childhood until LWJ gets aged up again.

But if LWJ were to go into the past, into WWX's childhood, and actually be there witnessing Wei Ying on the streets or Madam Yu's treatment of him, we'd see a lot more because LWJ would be so protective and defensive and angry in a way he would not need to be if de-aged!WWX was happening in the present post-canon. Likewise, I think WWX would feel both furious and helpless at the way little Lan Zhan's feelings get shut up and repressed if he was at Cloud Recesses in the time when LWJ was actually a child, in a way WWX wouldn't be if LWJ was de-aged in the present post-canon. Basically, if either of them is de-aged post-canon, they get to be in the protecting and loving environment the other would create for them, when what's sad about their childhoods is the difficult environments they each had.

But I really didn't want to do time travel, because things changing in the past changes the present, and that wasn't what I was interested in. I just wanted them to be able to witness each other's childhoods.

So, post-canon, they encounter some kind of demon that seems to have trapped WWX in his own mind, but LWJ can enter his mind to save him. This puts LWJ in WWX's memories of childhood and witnesses WWX in the streets, WWX running from dogs, WWX getting found by JFM, etc. At first, LWJ thinks he can only passively watch the memories, but kid!Wei Ying inside the memories notices him, and LWJ realizes that he can talk to Wei Ying and interact with Wei Ying. He can thus change the memories--to an extent. No one else in the memories can see him or interact with him, because the living WWX exists in these memories but the other people are static memories in WWX's head. So, for instance, LWJ can pick up Wei Ying and take him away from the dogs, but the dogs don't react as though LWJ is there at all. LWJ can stand up to Madam Yu and say that she's treating Wei Ying unfairly, but Madam Yu can't hear him.

But Wei Ying can, and Wei Ying isn't aware he's inside his memories. To him, LWJ is this magical cloud prince who just shows up sometimes and is very pretty and nice and kind to him. They progress linearly through the memories until 15yo!WWX meets 15yo!LWJ, then WWX realizes who the magical cloud prince is and begins to figure out that he's somehow trapped.

But wait! In fact, WWX was never the one trapped in his own mind by a demon, it's been LWJ all along, except LWJ wouldn't let WWX inside his memories to help him out of the curse, so WWX opened up his own memories to let LWJ travel through then, thinking along the terms of "I showed you mine; now you show me yours." It works, and WWX is finally able to travel though LWJ's memories in the same way as LWJ traveled through his, and then they break the curse.

It's from WWX's pov but starts in Wei Ying's pov when he's 6 or 7 (which is suuuuuuuuper difficult to write btw) and he just sees this pretty gege appearing at random times and calls LWJ in his head "man from cloud."

I didn't write much. Sadly, as much as I love the idea, I don't see myself continuing it. I love the idea more than the idea of executing it! Thank you for asking! <3

[danmei-confessions]

As ever in this fandom some people are coming from CQL, where NMJ tries to kill JGY 1) when he thinks he was actually actively working for the Wen and 2) after JGY deliberately poisoned him in a way designed to provoke uncontrollable rage and maybe psychosis.

Beyond that at I think NMJ gets cut slack for two reasons: the first being that yes, he is sick, and even in the novel it's somewhat ambiguous when exactly JGY starts poisoning him. When he strikes out at Huaisang thinking he's JGY, for example, he's definitely under the influence of JGY's evil music. Personally I do think if you try to poison someone in a way that is designed to make them so mad they die you forfeit your right to complain when that backfires on you.

The second reason I think people cut him slack is that NMJ's beef with JGY is about how he thinks JGY is doing serious bad shit and lying to him about it when JGY is in fact doing serious bad shit and lying to NMJ about it. Aside from the big ticket items NMJ knows about or knows something about (Xue Yang, the clan he has XY wipe out in villainous friends, the Wen torture palace spy adventures) there's smaller stuff (NMJ clocks instantly that JGY is actively lying about WWX's behaviour to Jiang Cheng, for example). NMJ is angry about something many people perceive as reasonable (being constantly lied to) and suspicious about something that he is correct about (JGY doing assorted bad shit).

NMJ is determined to uphold (his idea of) justice. That's why XXC goes to him, and that's why He Su asks JGY if he doesn't fear NMJ discovering that he's massacring his whole clan without reason. Protecting people from the kind of stuff JGY does is important to him even when it's not JGY. That's a big part of why he goes to war with Wen Ruohan, and why Meng Yao is able to impress him by caring for civilians, and why he is enough of a thorn in JGS's side that he tells JGY to kill him. There is a big divide in fandom between people who see the root of their conflict as NMJ being unreasonable about the position JGY is in and people who are the root of their conflict as them having fundamentally different values, but I think for people who are sympathetic to Mingjue's position the staircase fight is about whether JGY is in fact justified in throwing other people's lives away if it ensures his own safety and power. "To achieve great things, one must make sacrifices/Then why don’t you sacrifice yourself? Are you more distinguished than them? Are you different from them?/ Yes. Of course I'm different." So Mingjue is perceived (by me, at least) as having a reasonable concern about the harm JGY may do to other people while also being incapacitated enough by his saber sickness for that to be a mitigating if not exculpatory factor in how he chooses to deal with it. Additionally, because he knows JGY lies often and is a good enough liar to fool him, he can never actually sit down with JGY and have an honest conversation about what he's done or might choose to do in the future, and he can't know when JGY is being sincere with him (see murder attempt #2). He thinks JGY is a danger to the general public and he feels obligated to help mitigate that danger both because he's JGY's sworn brother and because he thinks protecting people is his job more generally. But tbh I don't think killing NMJ ranks high on most people's lists of JGY's crimes, anyway. He was in a spot, NMJ is a big boy, I think it's fair for A-Sang to take his shot for Dage but he does so much worse shit to so many more people killing one guy feels like small potatoes.

.

[thisisallthehattersfault]

Y’know given Hua Cheng’s shapeshifting and Shi Qingxuan’s shapeshifting and He Xuan’s shapeshifting and the kingdom of Xianle prizing androgyny and Xie Lian’s total blasé attitude about when people confuse him for a woman

I feel like maybe my Wei Clan don’t… do… gender?

Like. I think after a few generations of being surrounded by all this gender fuckery from all directions — especially when you know the girls would be raised with just as much freedom and indulgence as the boys — I feel like eventually everybody’s gender identity would be best described as a shrug. The Wei know what gender society Expects them to be, and for their own convenience they typically just go along with that, but it doesn’t actually have any weight for them.

Wei Changze doesn’t like the way makeup feels on his (their?) face but he likes when he gets to leave the Jiang sect and go home for holidays and stuff because it means they get to wear pretty dresses.

The family’s perspective on other peoples’ genders is that like. If you tell me your name is Familyname Givenname, and your favorite color is orange, and you really like lychee, and you are a woman, It is not my place to say “no, you’re wrong” about any of that.

Like, gender to them os very much a societal role, and those roles don’t apply to them, but it’s sort of like… occupations? This musician is a woman. She does musician things, like compose her own music, and perform for audiences, and maintain her instrument of choice. She does woman things, like manage the house’s finances, and cook, and wear makeup. Those are all fine, good things for a person to do, and we wish her as much success in her career as a woman as we do her success in her career as a musician.

The only time Wei Changze ever cared much about gender was after meeting Cangse Sanren, when he felt the spark, realized instantly she was his destined one, and then just as quickly realized he was gonna have to somehow explain this stuff to her and oh god people who aren’t of Xianle get Weird about this what if she thinks it’s creepy or gross oh no

(Of course CSSR is super interested and curious and lowkey turned on and it is the complete opposite of an issue)

It is so, so much weirder for Wei Wuxian, who was kidnapped and presumed dead for the first seventeen some-odd years of his life, and was very much raised As A Man. Not only does meeting his long lost family send him down an identity crisis for all of the obvious “what do you mean I’m half-undead Ghost Royalty” reasons, but it ALSO sends him down a gender crisis, which happens right on the heels of his sexuality crisis re: realizing that LWJ is his Destined Other, which then tucks neatly into yet another crisis because LWJ already barely likes him (them?????) will he be able to handle it if Wei Wuxian is also kind of a girl sometimes??? Would he like it better if Wei Wuxian is always a girl???? Is that even and option or does Wei Wuxian need to stop doing gender entirely??????? He doesn’t know how to do that???????????

(Wei Wuxian does not, in fact, need to make any changes or choices with regards to his gender if he does not want to, nobody is gonna pressure him, but the kid is going through a lot in a very short amount of time and the spiral is probably going to be cathartic, so let him have a breakdown. He deserves it.)

(Of course, LWJ does a lot more than “barely like” WWX, and once the gender thing is explained to him he does a lot more than just “handle it.” He is supportive and eager to learn and understand and, of course, as always, kind of horny about it. He ends up deciding he has a Thing for WWX in slinky nightgowns, and they have lots of weirdly tender, nasty, disrespectful sex about it.)

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

High risk, high reward

@krispydestinydefendor

🥂🚨🚑 ahem preferably wwx centric but like i love every single thing you've written so hehe <3

There is a saying in my country that's roughly translated as "either the ball [as in, the prom/banquet], or the hospital", and it means taking the leap no matter the risks because everything could either go terribly wrong or terribly right. It's an elegant way of saying "fuck it" before doing a high risk activity.

This prompt made me think of that.

Wei Wuxian likes risks. He likes the thrill of it, and the fact that, most often, he gets the reward that's made him take the risk in the first place. Whether it's a dare or an idea he wants to see if he can put into practice, he doesn't shy away from anything.

However, there are times when the risks he takes aren't necessarily calculated, and land him in trouble - nothing major, most often with getting yelled at by Madam Yu and having to replace whatever he broke or damaged using his own money... but this time, it's a bit more... difficult to do that.

Because Wei Wuxian won a bet he made with Jin Zixun just to shut him up - but now, Wei Wuxian is feeling like he's going to die. Or puke his guts and his soul out.

The bet was about Wei Wuxian being able to take 10 flutes of champagne at once. They're at this afterparty of some high class gala of the four great families, and since the parents and the uncles have retired for the night already, the younger generation has been left to have fun freely, without any formalities. It was uncle Jiang's idea, bless him, but Wei Wuxian kind of wishes it hadn't been.

Cause even with his massive alcohol tolerance, he's pretty sure he's well on his way towards alcohol poisoning.

"Huaisang, I think we need to call an ambulance..."

"An am- Wei-xiong, are you dying?!"

Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes. "I will if you don't call the ambulance. Just tell them what happened and to send in someone quick. I don't know, a doctor, a nurse, a priest..."

"Serves you right for getting into it with Jin Zixun." Jiang Cheng says, handing Wei Wuxian another glass of water. "You'd sooner die than mind your business."

"I'm really not in the mood for any of your lectures right now. Yell at me when I feel better. Or when I die."

Wei Wuxian closes his eyes and decides to try and at least get himself in a stable state of mind. Last thing he needs is to panic, so he tries to take in deep breaths and ignore the nausea and the impending sense of doom he's feeling.

He knows he's going to have to pay his own hospital bills, and he's going to also have to do Nie Huaisang's homework for months to cover the cost of the ambulance ride (which he has been generous enough to offer to cover), but at least he won't be dead. He'll wish he was when Madam Yu finds out about this, but that's a given.

If she ends up kicking Wei Wuxian out this time, like she threatened she would if he got into trouble again, he'll have to figure out how to make himself useful enough to convince one of his friends to take him in. He's pretty good in the kitchen and he can do a decent job cleaning, so maybe he could be their live-in maid or something... Well, didn't Madam Yu say he'll end up just like his father?

The sound of the ambulance alarm pulls him out of his thoughts. Right, the hospital. He almost forgot about it, which isn't necessarily a good sign of his mental state right now.

"Wangji-xiong, he's right there, I think he's almost passed out and I really don't know-"

Wangji-xiong? Oh, right, Lan Zhan is working the night shift as an EMT tonight, that's why he couldn't come to the gala... What a coincidence...

Wei Wuxian feels himself gently lifted in a pair of very strong arms, and he makes the herculean effort to open his eyes. "Lan... Zhan...?"

"I am here. You'll be okay."

"Mm... if you'll take care of me, I will..."

Lan Wangji tells Jiang Cheng something but Wei Wuxian doesn't really hear it. He's focused on trying not to throw up on his crush, who's so strong and smells so good and is holding him like a bride, and maybe it's the alcohol but Wei Wuxian really wants to kiss him, but...

"Lan Zhan..."

"Mn?"

"I like you..."

"I like you too, Wei Ying."

"No, like you as in I want you to be my boyfriend."

"Ask me again when you're sober."

"Will you say yes?"

"I will."

"Lan Zhan?"

"Mn?"

"I think I'm about to throw up."

[xiyao-feels]

Why do so many people believe JGY framed MXY and that the watchtowers were the same as the Wen Sect’s Yiling supervisory offices?

Ha, okay. So, there's kind of two reasons.

The first is that people really like to hate JGY and will totally make shit up and are way predisposed to accept any explanations that make him look bad. "Wait, just like the mob in MDZS?" Exactly like the mob in MDZS. I've said it before, but if this were a novel where WWX's story was framed like JGY's, fandom would be 100% convinced that he cursed Jin Zixun, and probably most people would think he killed Jin Zixuan on purpose too.

For the framing MXY specifically I should also add that last time I wrote about this people pointed out that people want MXY to be innocent, since not only did he have a shitty home life but also he's the only canonically queer character aside from Wang//xian and if he's harassing someone that's just.... really unfortunate.... And I do think that's true and it's an important motivation for people. But I also think that if the guy he was supposed to have harassed was a character people actually liked, people wouldn't conclude that JGY framed him. Some people would probably think he was actually guilty; a lot of people would try to hold them both as blameless. Instead it's mostly just JGY who gets blamed.

The second reason for these positions on MXY and on the watchtowers is, unfortunately, CQL.

When it comes to MXY, first and most obviously, CQL added JGY to his vengeance spell. This isn't the case in MDZS at all, but I think the logic is fairly obvious: if MXY is looking for revenge against JGY, maybe it's because JGY harmed him, in which case.... I do actually think there's a bit of a problem with an argument that uses the CQL-only fact of JGY being a vengeance target, and combines it with the MDZS-only fact of JGY not QS being the one he'd harassed, but such is life. In any case it's not a watertight argument, you can totally see how MXY would want revenge even if he was 100% absolutely guilty, but I think it does help explain why people think in that direction.

But there's also a specific line from WWX, after he wakes up after the cultivation conference:

Now I know who is Mo's last enemy. As soon as he's dead, the curse will lift naturally. It's Jin Guangyao. Now, in any case, would not believe that Mo Xuanyu was expelled from Jinlintai because he harassed madam Jin. I'm afraid he knew what Jin Guangyao's secret was and wanted to tell Qin Su, but Jin Guangyao took the initiative to kick him off.

(Episode 42)

This is never followed up on, of course. You will also observe that in light of what we know about JGY's actual secrets this doesn't make any sense. MXY wanted to tell Qin Su that....JGY killed NMJ? The only secret it would possibly make sense to go to QS specifically with is the whoops incest secret, and the only way MXY could possibly know that is if NHS arranged for him to find out, and NHS has no reason to do that and a great deal of reason not to; it would be an enormous risk (JGY might trace it back to him!) and it's well before NHS has all his ducks lined up in a row. Frankly I'm not even sure if NHS actually knew yet at that point in the timeline.

As a side note, I love how this theory posits that MXY knew an important and dangerous secret about JGY, which he attempted to reveal, and JGY's response was to frame him and let him back out into the world. Like, yes, back into the bosom of his abusive family, but man, what a risk to take! I am pretty much of the opinion that if MXY were actively opposed to JGY while also knowing a dangerous secret he'd be dead, because JGY would have arranged to have him killed, because duh. He might hold him captive instead if he really liked him, or felt like MXY had helped him or his mother or something, but in no case is just sending him back to his family on the table.

And when it comes to the watchtowers, the comparison to the supervisory offices is made in the conversation WWX overhears on his way to JL's celebration.

"Jin clan has come across a series of happy events. Little Childe Jin is about one month old. All Jin clan are over the moon. I hear His excellency wants to set up lookouts around the land."

"Lookouts? Recently several clans are arguing over this. Is there an agreement?"

"What is to argue over? I think the lookout is a great idea. On one hand, it can monitor situations from place to place. On the other hand, it passes messages immediately. I don’t know what they are arguing about."

"I don’t think so."

"What if…it would become another Wen’s Supervisory Office?"

"Are the two the same? Jin clan is only in charge of building lookouts. They are managed by all clans."

"Be that as it may, managing it jointly will finally turn into managing it alone by Jin clan of Lanling."

"I hear the idea was proposed by Jin Guangyao. Even if Red Blade Master disagree with building lookouts, he is supposed to attend first-month celebration of Jin Zixuan’s son."

(Episode 31)

This, on the other hand, is the conversation WWX overhears in MDZS:

One of them asked, “Chief Cultivator? Seems like the big sects have been arguing over this for the past while. Have they come to a conclusion yet?”

“What is there to argue about? We can’t be a heap of loose sand, a group without a leader forever, can we? To set a cultivator who watches over all of the sects—I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

“It’s not that good, is it? What if another QishanWen Sect…”

“How could that be the same? The Chief Cultivator is elected by all the sects. They’re different, they’re different.”

“Hah, they say it’s an election, but everyone knows in their hearts. No matter what, it’s the same few people who’s competing, isn’t it? Is there any space for others?”

“ChiFeng-Zun is quite against it, isn’t he? He’s tried to stop Jin GuangShan so many times, implied or otherwise. In my opinion, there’s still a long time before they finish mulling over it.”

“And there can be only one person who sits in the position of Chief Cultivator. If it really passed, whom exactly the person should be would take another few years of arguing over, I suppose.”

“It’s the worry of those who sit at the top, anyways. None of our business. It’s not like little shrimps like us could have any control over it even if we wanted to.”

Someone suddenly changed the subject, “Did any of you attend the completion ceremony of the Cloud Recesses’ Library Pavilion? Well, I went. I stood there and looked, and it was the exact same as how it was before. A difficult undertaking indeed.”

“Yeah, very difficult. It was such a huge cultivational residence, an ethereal realm of hundreds of years old—how could it be rebuilt in a short amount of time?”

“Speaking of it, there’s been a lot of joyous occasions these days, hasn’t there?”

And then in both cases they start talking about JL's party.

So you'll observe a few differences here. First and most obvious, the worries about the position of Chief Cultivator—which WRH held in CQL, but which didn't exist before now in MDZS—are transferred to be about the watchtowers instead.

Now these concerns make a lot more sense if they're about the position of Chief Cultivator, and they don't really make sense if they're about the watchtowers—like, one whole thing about the watchtowers is that they're in remote areas, that's the entire point. What are they supposed to be supervising, exactly? The one wandering cultivator who comes by the area every three years of they're lucky? And observing that there will be only one Chief Cultivator, and it's going to be from a limited pool of candidates, makes much more sense to me than worrying that the Jin alone will end up running the towers—I mean, it's not impossible, but it's a longer-term concern and much easier to prevent than "limited pool of candidates", lol.

But yeah: the watchtowers/Wen supervisory offices comparison is one CQL draws directly. It's not one that makes any sense, but unfortunately that's kind of CQL on a lot of the CQL-specific things JGY's supposed to have done. (I tried to work out the timeline at one point for the XY collaboration in CQL and just gave up.)

(I also left in the discussion about the rebuilding of the Lan's library pavilion in the MDZS discussion, because it's not there in the CQL discussion, and this really gets my goat. It's like two lines! That ask a question we don't even know, at this point in the story, there's an actual answer to: how did they rebuild it so fast? But apparently in this particular change they're not even going to leave us that.)

tl;dr: a) people really hate JGY; b) unfortunately, CQL.

[skalidris]

I think one of the things I'd like most about an lxc pov would be the flip to a different kind of unreliable narrator. He is full of love and kindness and chances, but also its constantly at war with his desire to follow the teachings and rectify them with those urges when they don't gel. Reading someone jgy from lxc's perspective and getting gut punched even harder at the temple..... Oooh sweet tragedy

augh yeah... he's shaping himself and the rules against some ideal of love and kindness and chances for sure and that doesn't work well in the first place and then there's Everything That Happens

i'm not sure where i think the rectification, or maybe reconciliation, of those complicated things really happens--like, if he puts that need to make them gel on himself, on others, on some abstract fact, or... idk. that'd be one thing i'd be interested in seeing. my gut says he's not actually resolving those contradictions, and on purpose, but idk!!

..i'm also, personally, fond of lxc as a confident person ^^ i think there's a particular ... arrogance? (i don't know if that's an appropriate word here) to him that would make him an interesting comparison to wwx for sure

[youhideastar]

WIP Wednesday: Lawyer AU, first impression

Phew, in under the wire this week! The Beta WWX/Alpha LWJ fic continues to bedevil me - I'm making progress, but it's like pulling teeth much of the time. The Dare was like this for a while, and it eventually came together, so I have faith. But ugh, while it's happening, it's no fun! It'll be posted in 3 chapters, and I'm wondering about posting the chapters as they're finished instead of all at once. I almost never do that, but... maybe I could use the encouragement. We'll see. Anyway, in the meantime, more Lawyer AU - this time, Lan Zhan's first impression of Wei Ying, when they meet for the first time in law school!

There is this girl. In Lan Zhan’s 1L class – in Lan Zhan’s small-group section, in fact. Chinese, pretty—and obnoxious. Lan Zhan came to law school prepared to like none of her classmates, but she did not come prepared to spend every class seething.

This girl—Wei Ying—constantly raises her hand in class. Doesn’t care that everyone thinks she’s the worst kind of gunner, doesn’t care that Lan Zhan thinks she’s a gunner, doesn’t care that she’s playing into stereotypes about Chinese students and that the rest of them, including Lan Zhan, will pay for it, and the most irritating part of all is that she’s—

Brilliant.

All of her questions are sharp; all of her suggestions are creative, unorthodox; all of her cold-calls are exemplary. In a display of infuriating arrogance, she is utterly unintimidated by the professors. While everyone else is wincing and ducking their heads, feeling their own intellectual inferiority for the first time, realizing they’re not big fish anymore, this girl has the nerve to talk to the professors like equals. She never lets them push her on the hypotheticals: when they try, she acknowledges the merits of their arguments but stands firm on her conclusion. No one accomplishes that so consistently. No one even tries so consistently.

(Lan Zhan does not consider herself in this equation. She was raised by a federal judge; taught law at the dinner table from the age of six. Naturally, she feels more comfortable asserting herself in class.)

This Wei Ying is at office hours so frequently—debating with the professors, charming them, talking about things that have nothing to do with the course—that it seems she is already there every time Lan Zhan knocks on the door of a professor’s office to ask her own questions.

Once, Wei Ying leaves her Civil Procedure textbook behind in the classroom, and Lan Zhan picks it up to return it to her. Her curiosity gets the better of her, and she opens the book; flips through it. She is infuriated to find it blank: no highlighting, no underlining, no notes in the margins.

Lan Zhan does not swear often. She was raised to find it tasteless, and an admission of rhetorical defeat. There is always some more appropriate way to express the thought; only the lazy resort to profanity to convey vehemence.

But as she stares at the blank pages of that textbook, all she can think is: Who the fuck is this girl?

(Months later, it will dawn on her: a clean book can be sold back to the campus bookstore for a higher price than a marked-up one, when the semester is over.

It is not something Lan Zhan has ever had to think about. One of a thousand ways she takes her family’s money for granted.

Wei Ying does not have that luxury.)

She is assigned to edit Wei Ying’s brief for their Legal Practice class, and is further infuriated to find that she has no structural criticisms to offer: merely edits that she can admit to herself are nitpicks, and a few suggestions to accomplish greater concision. Wei Ying writes in long, sprawling sentences, and Lan Zhan is sure that they must be run-ons, sure of it, there’s a reason writing instructors preach short sentences. She goes through the draft armed with a red pen, looking for periods to insert, but—

The awful thing is, Wei Ying’s gargantuan sentences are grammatical. Like magic, like witchcraft, they break every rule of good composition, and they are…

Beautiful. Clear. Persuasive. Forceful. Virtues that Lan Zhan was taught could only accompany concision. But she can recognize them when she sees them.

And she sees them in Wei Ying.

[llycaons]

ep18 (1/2): in which wwx manipulates and lies to his friends and family (lovingly)

forgot this. he can just fly around catching birds. no wonder it's so easy to camp

I feel like birthdays really only crop up in american tv in the context of little kids. it's something children do.

xy twirling his hair as he walks away 😭 can your believe ppl still ship them after he murdered SL's entire family

this was such a good change for the show to make bc 1. this introduces the idea of bssr really naturally and 2. it gives wwx another interaction with SL, which is emotionally significant later for both us and the characters

also they need to slip in his backstory and all of its parallels to wx somehow and waiting until yi city is way too late

oh cool I love a t/n

wwx making it a mystical quest bound in ceremony and ritual to prevent jc from suspecting or asking too many questions, and to control his actions. ugh

that post abt jc hero-worshipping wwx continues to baffle me. in fact this is the only time we ever see jc so eager to follow wwx's directions and do what he says

'let her do anything' she is a grown woman she can gather herbs if she wants and what authority do you have to stop her 😭

this smile after he convinces jc about his plan is so haunting. you can see he's sxcited and then the smile fades and he just looks...resigned? fucking misery

yanqing warriors! when wwx mentions jyl leaving soon, wen qing freezes and doesn't say anything for a few seconds. what can it mean hmm?

I don't think jc would have accepted the core if he knew what wwx planned, which is why wwx kept it secret. one of the reasons

this is kind of manipulative no? not in a way to hurt her just to get her to agree with his plan. and maybe he means it too. maybe he would have done with without the debt of the jiangs held over his head. we'll never know

drugging you sister. sir!

I think it's really funny when wwx insults jc sorry I always will. he deserves to at least a little

first shot of wwx looking like a little mousie with his threabare pillow and jc a raging little brat. very similar to the first shot of the show! wwx bleeding and suicidal, and jc stalking over to finish the job. but in that scene and this one, we see there's more to the story

im going to fucking isekai myself into cql universe for the sole purpose of cuddling this child

you know I was so excited for jfm to say that. like go jfm! the haters were wrong about you! you love and protect at least one child under your care!

and then it IMMEDIATELY cuts to wwx hours later freezing because jfm told him 'jc is a good kid' and then he LEFT HIM THERE AND WENT TO BED

FUCK HIM FUCK HIM FUCK HIM. USELESS BASTARD. YOU ARE THE PROBLEM HERE

ugh it's not cool to hate on a 9 year old esp since he's lonely and neglected by his dad but he's such a brat

her parents and sect are so useless this preteen girl has to go out into the woods at like 1 am to find her new brother

wwx's first instinct was to find a tree to climb. dogs can't climb trees, but how many trees were in yiling for him to learn to climb? hmm

wwx falling is such a theme and jyl being the only one besides lwj to ever try to catch him....ough. his two lights indeed

jyl also actually explains why jc is upset rather than just telling him he'll be fine

HALF A DAY??!! hasn't he suffered enough. mein gott

and of course now she has to parent her two baby brothers one of whom is very traumatized and newly adopted and the other is very socially inept and clumsy so he came out to help and now he's BLEEDING. if I was her I would have carried so much resentment as an adult oops her parents are dead so I guess she can't even if she wanted to

YOU WILL SAY IT CRYING SOMEDAY

it's significant that (iirc) jc never says he's sorry in the main timeline. only twice in the story - here and at the very end. a lot of people consider the finale the end of their relationship, but I prefer to see it as a reset. a renewal. they're starting again. jc is crying and he's sorry for hurting wwx, and wwx forgives him because he's a nice kid and because he does care about him. and they can start from there, even if things will be different

they don't have jyl anymore, but everything's come out between them. they can coexist on equal footing. wwx has someone who protects him. jc doesn't resent him so much. all his anger is spent. he feels bad. they won't be what they were before, but I like to think they'll at least have some of the brotherhood they once did

jc also crying in his sleep with this flashback. lot of sleep crying these days

[whetstonefires]

10 and 29 for the ask game?

10. Is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

I try not to have expectations, so I'm sure it's happened a lot and I didn't remark upon it enough to remember.

I do recall that All the Roofs of Uncertainty was originally a one-shot that was much better-liked than I expected, so I wrote into the what-happens-next and changed the original open ending into a whole plotline, that consisted almost entirely of Jason Todd talking to people in a hospital.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

Oh gosh I have so many fics that lie unfinished because the work necessary to complete them exceeded my interest in the premise. I could do this for weeks and not run out. Let's see.

Okay, the funniest fic that I will never ever finish is the one that was me trying to draw up a plausible background scenario for an AU (which I couldn't decide if it ought to be modern or not) where Su She was dating Wei Wuxian.

(This in turn was inspired by the fact that I kept reading modern AUs where various canon villains were cast as wwx's shitty boyfriend or ex and it was never Su She, aka the bargain bin version of Lan Wangji, who seemed to me to be the least improbable option on offer. Like if you feel the need to lampshade repeatedly within your fic that it's incomprehensible that Wei Wuxian would ever voluntarily date Jin Zixun, maybe that's a sign you should change that bit.)

The plot of the story that Su-She-uses-his-words-and-pulls-wwx embedded itself in would have revolved around Lan Wangji subsequently agreeing to a date with ten-years-younger Mo Xuanyu, presumably in an attempt to move on, and Su She picking up on his hopeless pining when both couples happened to be in the same room, as dates to the same function or something, and then following a characteristically self-destructive course where he got so wrapped up in rubbing it in Lan Wangji's face that he finally had something the Lan scion wanted and couldn't get that he wound up entirely destroying his own relationship.

Wei Wuxian is a very good judge of people who also attracts strong personal loyalty once people get attached to him in the first place, and notably something that simply never happens to him is someone betraying him who he trusted not to do that. (Jiang Cheng does not count; Wei Wuxian maneuvered him into most of it, he wasn't taken by surprise.) So it could be really neat to finesse the character work of him understanding Su She's basic character flaws, but not expecting them to manifest or affect him quite the way they end up doing.

In the same way he mostly gets Lan Wangji as a person from the start but, lacking insight into certain things he's hiding, is unable to reliably reconstruct his perspective. To an increasingly noticeable degree, as lwj acts on that aspect of his motivations more openly.

I am never going to write that though, because I just don't care enough about that kind of story, although concept free to a good home.

I did write out a little of the backstory to how Su She could have wound up in a position of wanting to date Wei Wuxian on his own merits, which was a fun bit of character study because Su She is basically Jin Guangyao's Wen Ning, you know? Evil Wen Ning.

His understanding of Jin Guangyao as someone who respects and values him earned an insane amount of personal loyalty from a basically very selfish guy--like sure, it's clear he got a steady stream of favors out of the bargain, but he also puts himself on the line way in excess of the practical value Jin Guangyao has provided and is likely to provide; the real inducement was the validation.

So, if Wei Wuxian had happened to be carelessly kind and supportive to Su She the way he was to Wen Ning, having met him in a weak moment before Su She had had a chance to make an impression as a petty asshole rather than just a bit of a dumbass (not that he actually in canon managed to make any personal impression even by shooting him in the arm) you could probably arrange for him to glom onto Wei Wuxian instead, as someone like him, who didn't get the respect he deserved because of his birth station.

And Wei Wuxian would be perfectly willing to reciprocate that friendship, even though (as with Wen Ning) if Su She didn't reach out promptly he'd have totally forgotten he existed until prompted lmao. Su She would never forgive that insult.

You can see in the passage here where I still kind of wanted it to be a modern AU so they're texting, but the setup I'd written previously worked as a clean canon divergence because that's my usual preference, and I really wasn't interested enough in a plot that's entirely about romantic relationships to figure that out and write the rest.

But I did enjoy doing this study of how Su She could have gotten stuck on Wei Wuxian, only to later go on to fuck himself over with his Lan Wangji complex.

It was nice to have someone to complain to who got it. When Su Minshan talked about having no family to turn to, about owing everything to the Sect that had raised him when, to the Lan, everything came down to the clan and he would never have a chance to truly distinguish himself— Sometimes I think about just leaving, Su Minshan wrote, because Wei Wuxian wouldn’t scold him for being ungrateful. You can, if you want, Wei Wuxian wrote, as if it was that easy. Only if you came too, Su Minshan had written back, shaken by his own daring. Of course, Wei Wuxian refused. Jiang Cheng would never forgive me if I ran off. Because he’s counting on you to run his Sect for him. He absolutely is not. Jiang Cheng will work himself into the ground before he lets me do his job for him. He didn’t admit that of course the Sect Heir was counting on him, but he didn’t disagree, which was basically the same thing. Wei Wuxian worked very hard and was rewarded for it, but Su Minshan knew that even in Jiang the equal opportunity only went so far—he was the Sect Leader’s pet for personal reasons, not just on merit, and even so he could never rise to be the equal of the blood heir. It was infuriating sometimes how that didn’t bother him. Have more ambition! You’re so lucky, Su Minshan wrote, because he was jealous, he was so so jealous. I am! <3 But let’s see, outside the main family how important can a person get in Lan Sect? You can make a plan. Weeks of effort did not produce any particularly good plans. The most realistic one took forty years to show results. Maybe I should just kill Lan Wangji and use a spell to disguise myself and take his place, Su Minshan joked. Haha! Minshan-xiong, I’m sorry, you couldn’t pull off being Lan Zhan. That hurt, an unexpected cold dagger to the ribs. Wei Wuxian was his friend! Why not! he typed angrily. Was his playing too weak, his swordsmanship, his deportment? Would even Wei Wuxian tell him he was just not good enough? Because you could never resist saying something bitchy when you had the chance, and he keeps all the bitching inside his head. Su Minshan put his head down and laughed until he thought he might cry.

I have the sneaking suspicion I already shared this one for one of these games, because it really is by far the funniest thing I'm definitely never going to finish, so I'll reblog this post later with another offering.

[berdie314]

My AO3 bookmarks have become completely unwieldy since I got into MDZS/The Untamed, because I just have so many of them now. The key to organizing this mess will be consistent use of bookmarker’s tags and notes, and to that end, the first thing I’ve done is make myself a google doc of the tags I’ve used so far and what they mean.

Here's what I've got:

My AO3 Bookmark Tags

Star Trek AUs for everyone!  This tag is for fics from any fandom, but set in a Star Trek AU, because I eat these things up like candy.

“Not kind to Jiang Cheng” is a massive fucking understatement  For JC bashing MDZS fics specifically, but more broadly may apply to the general problem of fic in any fandom based on fundamental misunderstandings of canon, specifically of the flavor that is incapable of nuance and interprets all characters two dimensionally. The problem here is not that the interpretation of JC is negative. I am totally up for a post-canon fic in which there is no reconciliation and JC is just a mess of unresolved grief, guilt, and anger! I am not interested in a fic in which JC is an irredeemably petulant whiny child from birth and WWX is an angel without the slightest fault. Inevitably in these fics, all the characters receive similarly flat characterizations, and a lack of logic abounds as well. These fics are just so irksome, but often have an intriguing premise, so rather than allow them to disappear back into the morass of millions of fics, I’d rather warn myself not to bother trying to read them again. Set bookmark to private  (or find another way to phrase the tag).

made me cry  In a good way. For fics that made me cry a lot, not just get a bit teary a few times.

waiting for completion  Describes what I’m doing reading a WIP. The fic was incomplete when I read it; if it gets finished I want to read that. Set bookmark to private at least until this tag is removed. Include a note stating the last chapter I’ve read. Specifically for WIPs that might conceivably be updated someday, not those that have been definitively abandoned (orphaned, for example).

currently reading  Functionally identical to waiting for completion. Should merge the tags. Should also choose one that won’t require setting bookmark to private, so probably this one.

non-Jiang Wei Wuxian  MDZS/The Untamed specific tag for any fic in which WWX is taken in by a different sect, or otherwise grows up anywhere other than Lotus Pier. Again, candy.

Library  Fic in any fandom that takes place in a library, especially if it feels like it was written by a librarian.

the inherent trauma of MDZS’s pretty much everything  MDZS/The Untamed specific tag for a fic that takes the already ridiculous amount of tragedy in canon and cranks it up to 11. But in a good way.

the inherent trauma of time travel  Tag for time travel fic for any fandom in which the characters are (appropriately, frankly) stressed out by the fact that they are fucking time traveling.

Bees  Fic in any fandom which features honeybees and/or beekeeping, especially if it feels like it was written by a beekeeper.

Sort Of  Modifier to previous bookmarker’s tag. The bookmarker tag isn’t precisely applicable, but I do want this to show up grouped with those fics when I filter.

Tags/notes to develop?

-My pet peeve about badly written children. Maybe the kids are not alright?

-Extra bad grammar/spelling

-Something for a story good enough to read despite flaws or tropes that would ordinarily turn me off big-time, or like, a really tedious beginning.

-Author doesn’t grok chapters: A series where each work in the series is really a chapter. idk, probably doesn’t need to be a tag, but a consistent bookmarker note.

-Maybe merge Library and Bees under a tag that indicates any specific current day workplace/hobby AU that feels written by someone who actually does that thing in real life? Because I really enjoy that shit. But also because these two tags are probably superfluous: the author already used the same/an equivalent tag.

-Put in the notes the date when I reread a fic.

[grumpysunfish]

The ending of mdzs lives rent free in my head bcs it's just so weirdly out of place to me. I've always told my friend that if I meet mxtx my first question would've been what reading did she intend for that ending? Maybe this is the answer to that.

Can't say I'm very satisfied tho bcs my reading of mdzs is ultimately more generous than yours. I think at the very least jc and jgy's ending is supposed to leave a bad taste in your mouth. I've always thought that that particular part of the ending is one where it dares you to flinch and take an easy answer out. Label them bad and call it a day kind of takes. (Always thought a lot of the fandom fell for it.)

You know that popular reading that mdzs is a story where people don't get what they deserve? It really makes a lot of sense when it comes to jc and jgy but it's a reading that is kind of begging you to extend that towards wngx!an. This, combined with the fact the mdzs is a story that satirizes its own genre really makes it seem that there is something up with wngx!an's fairytale romance ending. Like, this too, should leave a bad taste in your mouth. It's just so perfectly set up.

But that would mean mxtx ruined her own happy ending and that's metal actually but, is that what she intended to do? Her interviews really make it seem that's not the case, right?

Idk. I think I'm just trying to deal with the dissonance of mxtx being a brilliant author who likes to deal with complicated situations and moral grayness and yet, seems to prefer straightforward answers. It's almost like she flinched at her own dare when it comes to wwx.

(And I did read wwx as his own form of dare. Hey look at this person who did a lot of things. I'm going to show you all the consequences of his actions both the good and the bad. Go make your own judgements about it. (Thats is until the ending))

wei wuxian vs. pragmatism: what MDZS intends to say about righteousness

copy/pasting most of my rather bitchy reply into its own individual post because i think it deserves to stand on its own.

so i think we can all agree that MXTX intends for us to read MDZS and conclude that wei wuxian is ultimately a deeply heroic and righteous person. whether you as the reader agree with this assessment of wei wuxian's moral character is another question entirely, but at the very least it is fairly obvious to all of us that MXTX intends for us to read him as a good person.

so why does MXTX call wei wuxian a good person? what aspects of his character and which of his choices make him a good person? what moral framework and what definition of morality does MXTX employ in order to call wei wuxian a good person?

i posit that MXTX argues that wei wuxian is heroic precisely because he is not pragmatic - because he adheres to his moral ideals despite the consequences, and because he did not make moral sacrifices at critical junctures of his life. the first half of this post will argue that wei wuxian is not pragmatic. the second half of this post will argue that this is exactly why wei wuxian is heroic, and that the moral framework employed by MXTX is deeply idealistic instead.

so let's begin.

let's start by establishing two things.

first: what MXTX argues about morality through the narrative of MDZS and the reader's own beliefs about morality are two different things. me saying "MDZS argues that xyz is righteousness" and me saying "i think xyz is righteousness" are two different statements. the following analysis is concerned not with what i myself consider to be righteous, but rather what MXTX argues through MDZS is righteous.

second: wei wuxian is not pragmatic.

what does it mean to be pragmatic? unless we are speaking about the school of philosophy specifically (which i am not here), being pragmatic means being grounded in reality and focused on practical outcomes. it means being result-oriented and considering the consequences of your actions before you act; it means acting only after you have considered the potential consequences of all possible courses of action and have then decided which outcomes are acceptable. being pragmatic also means recognizing when achieving everything you want is impossible. and, in such situations, being pragmatic thus entails compromising to achieve a desired outcome, even if that means you don’t get everything they want. to put it in edgier terms, being pragmatic means being able to make moral sacrifices.

an idealistic person attempts the impossible. a pragmatic person recognizes when something truly is impossible.

wei wuxian is not pragmatic.

first, wei wuxian is not someone who carefully considers the consequences of his actions before he acts. in fact, he displays a startling lack of consideration for consequences. it repeatedly falls upon other characters to either try (and fail) to hold him back.

when wei wuxian punched jin zixuan for insulting first jiang yanli and then jiang cheng, did he consider that jiang fengmian and jin guangshan might then dissolve the betrothal, and that jiang yanli might have wanted to make a decision regarding that on her own? no. he just punched jin zixuan because he was mad that jin zixuan had insulted two people he loved.

when wen chao threatened mianmian, and lan wangji and jin zixuan stood up for mianmian, and then wei wuxian stood up for them by holding wen chao hostage in turn - did he consider that there might be consequences for humiliating and threatening the life of the son of a warmongering great sect leader who has already proven capable of attacking other sects? no. did he stop and think "alright, wen ruohan has already attacked the cloud recesses, which proves that he's willing to wage war against the other sects. threatening the son of a sect leader is an easy way to earn any sect leader's ire, and since i'm the first disciple of the jiang sect, this puts not just me but the entire jiang sect on wen ruohan's shitlist"? no. it would be one thing if wei wuxian weighed this possibility and then decided that rescuing an innocent girl and the people who defended her was more important was worth the risk - that would show that he considered the consequences and then made his choice. but the thought simply never entered his mind. he acted simply because he wanted to save mianmian, jin zixuan, and lan wangji from the wens; he did not think beyond that.

when wei wuxian busted the wen remnants out of the qiongqi pass labor camp, did he have a clear plan as to how he was going to weather the political fallout? did he have a plan more detailed than "live quietly in the burial mounds until everyone forgets about us"? no. when jiang cheng challenged him as to how he was going to survive the situation, he did not in fact offer anything more concrete than "we'll just wait for everyone else to forget about us." he blustered about being a once-in-a-generation genius who could accomplish the impossible, but he provided no actual plan as to how he was going to do it. this leads me to conclude that wei wuxian did not in fact have a long-term plan for handling the consequences when he went ham at the qiongqi pass camp - that, instead of weighing the consequences and then making his decision, he instead decided immediately that this was something he had to do, consequences be damned.

and then - on top of this - all of his following actions then point in the exact opposite direction of his stated plan of waiting for everyone to forget about them. because instead of doing anything to fade into the background, everything wei wuxian did instead just convinced the jianghu he was an intolerable threat.

and this was not a sustainable strategy.

one thing i really appreciate about MXTX is that she does not make the rest of the jianghu into one-dimensional villainous morons. it's quite easy for lazy writers who want a persecution plotline to have the rest of the story's society magically start hating on the protagonist for no good reason, to make every background character in the story's world a three-braincell moron. but MXTX is not that author. it speaks to MXTX's skill as an author that, from the perspective of the rest of the jianghu, fearing wei wuxian as a mortal threat was an entirely reasonable conclusion for them to come to.

first, the gentry's most recent direct interaction with wei wuxian during this time period is him threatening to kill all of them. when jin zixun doesn't give him the information he wants, wei wuxian straight up says: "if i want to kill everyone here, who can stop me? who dares stop me?" this is a threat! and - surprise - threatening to kill people naturally makes people think that you want to kill them! 

next, wei wuxian refined wen ning's dead body into the first sentient fierce corpse in history, and also the strongest fierce corpse in living memory - and then took wen ning with him on night-hunts. that's where the reputation of "the yiling patriarch and his ghost general" comes from. this very naturally made the rest of society fear him even more, because now the guy who has just recently threatened to kill you has demonstrated even more of the power to easily do so! the unparalleled power to do so, which no one else possesses and it would be very hard for anyone else to counter! add in the fact that wei wuxian's activities were also attracting prospective disciples - people gathering outside the burial mounds because they wanted to learn demonic cultivation - and naturally the public is even more frightened, because now it looks like the guy who threatened to kill all of you is also gathering the political force to do so!

the public is incorrect about wei wuxian's intentions, of course. but what does wei wuxian do to correct these misconceptions? to rehabilitate his public image, because now his public image has the life of not just himself but also all the wen remnants under his protection riding on it? to prove to the public that he isn't an active threat to their lives - that he does not seek to murder them all in their beds - that it is safe for them to allow him to live, and that they can in fact survive if they don't kill him?

nothing.

it would be one thing if the story mentioned how wei wuxian tried to correct the malicious rumors about himself and failed. but that is not what happened. what happened is that wei wuxian sat on his corpse mountain and let everyone else say what they wanted to say. and when he left his corpse mountain, it was to bring his one-of-a-kind unparalleled sentient fierce corpse with him on night-hunts, which of course just fanned the flames of the rumors instead. he doesn't even tell the prospective pupils camped on his front door to fuck off - he just sneaks in through the back door.

this is not pragmatic behavior. though you can argue that wei wuxian's strategy here was to become so powerful and so scary that no one would dare try to fight him, anyone with a brain can tell you that this is not a sustainable solution in the long-term. first, if you want to use threats to keep someone from attacking you, you also need to promise stability - you need to give people the reassurance that if they don't start shit with you, then you'll leave them alone too. if you drive the "threat" factor too high, as wei wuxian did, you instead end up convincing people that if they do nothing you'll kill them anyways - that they have no choice but to kill you if they want to survive.

second, if you want to use threats to keep someone from attacking you, you also need to prepare for the inevitability that, if someone does end up getting hurt, everyone will blame you first and no one will want to hear your side of the story. after all, if someone gets hurt, then the first suspect everyone looks towards will be the guy who's been consistently saying "i'm strong enough to hurt you! i'm strong enough to hurt you! don't start shit with me because i'm strong enough to end you!" for the past few months. this is basic common sense. and yes, the society of MDZS is unfair - wei wuxian deserved a proper trial and investigation after the death of jin zixuan. but the fact that society is unfair is something a pragmatic person would have recognized and planned for.

wei wuxian did not recognize and plan for this reality. even after he accidentally kills jin zixuan, wei wuxian still insists that if only the jianghu investigates jin zixun's hundred holes curse, they'll see that wei wuxian didn't cast the hundred holes curse, they'll see that there was more scheming going on, etc etc. wen qing has to directly spell out for him that, at this point, society no longer cares about the truth of the matter. it seems that wei wuxian was actually oddly idealistic about the true nature of his society all the way until the very end.

all of this leads me to conclude that, when wei wuxian busted the wen remnants out of the qiongqi pass labor camp, he did so without considering the consequences of his actions. he assumed that he could improvise and weasel his way out of this situation, as he's always done in the past with his typical genius - only this time, he was wrong.

wei wuxian acts without considering the consequences of his actions. he does not make a decision only after carefully deliberating over all of the potential outcomes - not at all. instead, he acts in the moment - not out of any rational consideration of potential outcomes, but rather because it is simply something he must do. this by definition makes him a deeply unpragmatic person.

to put it into more familiar terms, for wei wuxian, the righteousness of an action comes not from its consequences, but are rather inherent to the action itself. even if he were doomed to fail, he could not give up on the wen remnants.

second, at critical junctures, wei wuxian is unable to make moral sacrifices. to be pragmatic is to know when you have to sacrifice: to know when, in order to achieve the most inalienable of your goals, you have to give up on some of your other goals. this is something wei wuxian is consistently unable to do.

of course, when it comes to his own wellbeing, wei wuxian is all too willing to sacrifice. he'll carve out any number of his internal organs to save those he loves. but this honestly speaks less to wei wuxian's moral framework and more to his lack of self-worth from a troubled upbringing.

because, when it comes to any moral cause, wei wuxian is entirely unable to sacrifice anything, even if being unable to sacrifice entails more negative consequences. wei wuxian could not sacrifice mianmian, jin zixuan, and lan wangji to wen chao and his goons, so he took action and took wen chao hostage himself. to sit back and do nothing as wen chao threatened the lives of those three was simply unthinkable for him - even if it meant taking a course of action that put yunmeng jiang in danger.

wei wuxian's relationship with jiang cheng deteriorated because jiang cheng did not know about the golden core transfer: because jiang cheng did not know that wei wuxian could no longer cultivate, from jiang cheng's point of view, it looked like wei wuxian was just refusing to help out and fulfill his promises for kicks. wei wuxian could have made things a lot easier for himself and also any wen remnants he chose to rescue had he simply told jiang cheng the truth - but he knew that finding out the truth of the golden core transfer would make jiang cheng miserable, and [jiang cheng's happiness] was not something he was willing to sacrifice.

wei wuxian's single most prominent moral decision is his refusal to allow the wen remnants to be sacrificed. anyone with a shred of political sense had to know that rescuing the wen remnants and then protecting them would be near impossible - that it entails making an enemy of the jin, and due to the jins' power, the entire jianghu. wei wuxian himself knew this; he is no moron. wei wuxian also had no long-term plan, no allies, and significantly less power than the rest of the world believed. yet, despite this all, he acted anyways, because he could not let the wen remnants be sacrificed.

the wen remnants wei wuxian rescued from the qiongqi pass labor camp included both regular civilians and cultivators. perhaps wei wuxian could have negotiated a proper release for the non-cultivating civilians, such as granny wen and a-yuan, had he chosen to give up on the cultivators. but - the question of whether this would have worked or not aside - this was not a sacrifice wei wuxian would be willing to make.

nor could wei wuxian sacrifice the safety of yunmeng jiang. i am firmly of the belief that, had yunmeng jiang formally stood by wei wuxian's side after wei wuxian attacked the jin-run labor camp, lanling jin would have eventually declared war on yunmeng jiang, and yunmeng jiang's would inevitably be destroyed. both wei wuxian and jiang cheng understood this as well - which is why wei wuxian told jiang cheng to let him go.

(you can argue - successfully - that wei wuxian did in fact sacrifice [his obligations to yunmeng jiang and his promise to jiang cheng] by leaving yunmeng jiang to protect the wen remnants. this is true. but i think that - from wei wuxian's point of view - this was not much of a sacrifice, because due to wei wuxian lacking a golden core, he already viewed himself as mostly useless to yunmeng jiang. so him leaving - in his view - is not really that much of a loss for yunmeng jiang.)

wei wuxian promised wen qing that he would return wen ning's consciousness to his corpse. when wei wuxian made this promise, he had no idea if he could actually pull it off or not. but then he did - and, in the process, created the most dangerous weapon the jianghu had seen in living memory. wen ning specifically, or moreso wei wuxian's inability to control him, leads to so much of wei wuxian's eventual downfall: wei wuxian loses control of wen ning and accidentally kills jin zixuan; when wen ning goes to turn himself in at jinlintai, he ends up going berserk again and killing another 10-20 jin and lan cultivators, which leads to the nightless city pledge conference. frankly, wei wuxian could have avoided a lot of trouble - or at the very least, a lot of the public's fear - had he not raised wen ning from the dead. it's not like he'd be completely defenseless without wen ning, either. but wei wuxian promised wen qing he would resurrect wen ning - and he could not sacrifice his promise to wen qing because of what wen qing had already done for him.

a pragmatic person is able to make sacrifices, including moral ones. at the very least, a pragmatic person recognizes when sacrifice is inevitable, when all paths lead to something being lost. a pragmatic person, put in the trolley problem, would recognize that there were only two options and that both options involve sacrifice: either he must kill one person, or he must allow five people to die. there is no path forwards in which all six people live.

wei wuxian is unable to make moral sacrifices. he clings on to all of these moral causes, all of these promises and obligations, and it is precisely because he attempts to hold onto all of them that he ends up losing everything. to reuse the previous example, wei wuxian in the trolley problem tried to save all six people because he could not accept any of the sacrifices made inevitable by the trolley problem.

to put this all together - wei wuxian is not a pragmatic person. he makes decisions with his gut, not his head - he does not consider the consequences of his actions before he acts. nor is wei wuxian able to make sacrifices - even necessary ones in order to avoid greater tragedies.

but. none of this means that wei wuxian is not a deeply heroic person. rather, to do what you believe to be righteous and attempt to live up to your ideals despite the consequences is exactly what MXTX lauds as moral. and to be unable to make a moral sacrifice when everyone else in your society easily does so is in fact deeply heroic.

it is precisely because wei wuxian is not pragmatic that MXTX declares him a hero.

some people, including myself, favor a moral framework that centers pragmatism and reason as virtues. to us, the ideal moral character is someone who makes decisions based on reason and not emotion, who considers the potential consequences of every course of action before making a decision, and who then, based on these inferred future consequences, uses reason to deduce which of all of the possible outcomes is the most preferable.

but this does not in fact describe wei wuxian, nor is this how wei wuxian views ethics. and to be honest, i don't think this is how MXTX views ethics either.

in all three of her stories, MXTX repeatedly comes down harder on the characters who make pragmatic decisions, the characters who are willing to sacrifice. in fact, killing sunshot soldiers while acting as wen ruohan's spy, and then killing nie mingjue's men in order to ensure a chance at killing wen ruohan and saving nie mingjue, was the pragmatic thing for meng yao to do, because that was the least bloody path forwards towards a sunshot victory over qishan wen. in fact, cutting ties with wei wuxian after he attacked the jin-run qiongqi pass labor camp was the pragmatic thing for jiang cheng to do, because it was the only path forward that did not put yunmeng jiang, his first and foremost responsibility, in the line of fire. and yet (though the situation is less clear with jin guangyao), MDZS as a narrative criticizes both jin guangyao and jiang cheng for these decisions - because, to MDZS, righteousness does not lie in pragmatism.

(this is a statement i personally disagree with. but we are here to discuss what MDZS wants to say about pragmatism and righteousness, not what i want to say about pragmatism and righteousness.)

by contrast, the one single act for which deeply controversial jiang cheng is ultimately lauded for in the narrative is also his single least pragmatic, most emotional act. the one single act of jiang cheng's that MDZS does not criticize is when, after the fall of lotus pier, jiang cheng ran out from his hiding spot to distract the wen soldiers from seeing wei wuxian. from a filial, duty-based point of view, this was a deeply stupid and unpragmatic course of action: jiang cheng's first and foremost duty, as the sole surviving jiang and new sect leader jiang, was to survive, rebuild his sect, and avenge his parents. from a consequentialist point of view, this impulsive choice is also what led to the domino-fall of tragedy that followed, since jiang cheng then got captured and had his golden core melted, which then led to everything else. yet this stupid, unpragmatic, and impulsive decision is ultimately the one act MDZS considers to be jiang cheng's single most heroic.

the key as to what MDZS considers to be heroic, what it considers to be righteous, lies in the jiang family motto: 明知不可而为之, attempt the impossible. this line, taken from the analects of confucius, can be considered to be a deeply deontological ideal. i find this twitter thread (warning to my followers: does kind of dunk on JC) to be rather helpful in elucidating this line's meaning. 

to attempt the impossible, to try what shouldn't be tried. "ask yourself not whether you can do it, but whether you should...consider not the result but rather the journey - have a clear conscience regardless of outcome." in other words, what matters is less whether you succeeded or failed, or what sort of outcome your actions brought about - what matters is that you tried. what matters is that, in the face of overwhelming odds, you tried to do what you think is right. and even if you end up failing - even if everyone you sought to protect ended up dying - the fact that you tried still has moral weight.

this is why it was righteous of wei wuxian to save the wen remnants - even though the ultimate consequences of that decision were overall negative, even though everyone wei wuxian tried to protect died. in fact, if wei wuxian had died immediately - if he had been shot down by jin archers at the qiongqi pass labor camp the moment he came within their range - if he had died before any wen in the labor camp realized someone wanted to save him - he would still be a righteous person. because, for MDZS, what makes an action righteous is not its consequences. for MDZS, what makes a person righteous is not what impact their actions have on the world, but rather that they have the sort of moral character that leads them to never give up on their ideals.

wei wuxian does not consider the consequences of his actions before he acts. or, should i say - wei wuxian makes decisions despite their consequences, because despite the consequences there are simply some moral causes he simply cannot give up on. wei wuxian did not save the wen remnants because it was pragmatic to do so. it was in fact deeply unpragmatic to do so. no - wei wuxian saved the wen remnants without a concrete long-term plan, without having thought through anything beforehand, with the knowledge of how weak he was in reality - because he could not give up on the wen remnants, consequences be damned.

to have some moral causes you simply cannot give up on, no matter the consequences - to MXTX, is deeply heroic. in this sense, MXTX's moral philosophy is not pragmatic at all, because to be pragmatic is to be concerned with practical consequences. instead, both wei wuxian and MXTX herself are deeply idealistic, because what matters to them are ideals and principles that extend beyond consequence.

as the linked twitter thread notes, this is why MXTX waits until the very end of the book to reveal that wen yuan, now lan sizhui, lived. this is why wangxian only meet mianmian and her family at the end of the book. this is why all of the cumulative positive impacts of wei wuxian's resurrection -  jin ling forgiving wei wuxian, jin guangyao, and wen ning, for one - are kept to the end of the story: because MDZS needs to move away from the consequentialist argument. MDZS needs to establish that wei wuxian's righteousness is separate from the impact of his actions: that wei wuxian isn't righteous merely because his actions had a positive impact for which others can thank him, but rather because the actions he undertook were inherently righteous on their own. that even if none of these positive impacts existed - if wen yuan had also died, if mianmian hadn't made it - then wei wuxian's choices would still be moral.

this is also why MDZS ultimately comes down harder on characters like jiang cheng and jin guangyao, even though a more results-oriented moral framework would instead laud such characters. both jiang cheng and jin guangyao are deeply pragmatic characters: they put concrete results before abstract moral ideals, and they're willing to compromise on their ideals in order to achieve better results. i am a JC stan and a jiggy apologist because of these exact traits. but MDZS is a narrative that criticizes such pragmatism and instead holds up wei wuxian's idealism as a moral ideal - so, in order to advance its themes, the MDZS narrative ends up criticizing both jiang cheng and jin guangyao.

ultimately, this idealism - this criticism of pragmatism - lies at the heart of MDZS's themes. wei wuxian's righteousness is directly connected to the fact that he is not pragmatic. the fact that wei wuxian makes moral decisions despite the consequences, and that he is unable to sacrifice any moral cause - is all part of what makes him at once deeply unpragmatic and deeply heroic.

---

you see, the funny thing here is that i personally disagree with this theme. as i've said before, i'm a utilitarian. to me, the morality of an action does in fact arise from its consequences; to me, someone who compromises on their ideals to achieve better results is preferable to someone who adheres to all of their ideals and then loses everything. the character i consider to have had the greatest positive impact on this story's world is jin guangyao. the character i consider to have most dutifully fulfilled his obligations is jiang cheng.

therefore, i disagree with basically everything i wrote up there about "trying": i think that if you try to do the right thing, fail epically, and in the process of your failure get a bunch of other people killed as well, the fact that you failed this badly does in fact matter quite a bit. the bulk of my more haterish posts are born from this fundamental disagreement with what MDZS posits is righteousness.

however. as a reader i must recognize that [what i consider to be moral] and [what the author of this story considers to be moral] are two different things. my own moral philosophy may be heavily results-oriented, but MXTX's is much less so. therefore, regardless of what i think of wei wuxian, i conclude that MXTX ultimately intends for us to read wei wuxian as a heroic figure for the exact reasons i gave above - and that fact must then inform every analysis of MDZS i write.

[lansplaining]

ok let’s do it: Mo Dao Zu Shi, the Musical! 

some disclaimers: this is an attempt to fit a story that is patently not an anglo american musical theatre shaped story into that structure, so there is aggressive and deliberate compression of storylines to make it fit that shape. this is almost certainly, objectively, a worse version of the story. i was interested in experimenting not with how a totally open-ended, free range musical structure where everyone gets a song and leitmotif and an arc could be used to tell the story, but how the story could be transplanted into this very constrained narrative form. and this is what i’ve got (with links, where applicable, to the songs that inspired each idea) 

Opening Number: “The Fall of the Yiling Patriarch.” Good news! He’s dead! We learn about the wicked Wei Wuxian and his Yin Tiger Tally through the ensemble’s celebration of his death. We hear the first strains of our Jiang Cheng theme as he is described as the hero who killed the Patriatch-- maybe. There are a lot of versions of the story. Before dissent can turn into fighting, 3zun emerge as the voices of peace, painting a picture of the bright future now that WWX is gone. Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji enter to triumphant celebrations of their role in his downfall. But before it can get much farther-- Lan Wangji suddenly interrupts, insisting everyone has the story wrong. Lan Xichen pulls him aside and tries to talk him down, to no avail, and as Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue rouse the ensemble up into celebration again to cover, Lan Wangji tries to make his voice heard as the Lan force him away. 

Scene One. 13 Years Later. Wei Wuxian (in Mo Xuanyu’s body) wakes up in a forest to the whispering of Jin seniors, who are laughing at poor, stupid Mo Xuanyu, who clearly tried to cast some kind of array and failed. They mock and bully him, then lose interest and wander off to get to work on the night hunt they’re here to undertake. WWX is affronted: don’t they know who he is? This kicks off the number: “I Guess I’m Back,” a montage-like number that carries us all the way through the scene.  In this first phase, he works out the spell MXY was trying to cast, and reflects on the bad reputation that made MXY choose him. He reckons he’s meant to get revenge on those Jin seniors, and resolves to do it as quickly as possible in order to retreat from the cultivation world, explaining some of his tricks to the audience in the process. The song recurs as he realizes this night hunt is an absolute minefield of the exact people he needs to avoid: first encountering Jin Ling, then catching a glimpse of Jiang Cheng, then the arrival of the Lan juniors. He starts to leave the juniors to squabble, one of the Jin boasting about a mysterious new spiritual device he has, when said Jin in fact releases (what we will learn is) the cursed arm spirit. WWX doesn’t want to get involved, but can’t leave these kids to die, and summons Wen Ning. This brings a convergence of everyone WWX has been actively trying to avoid, notably Jiang Cheng and the first appearance of Lan Wangji. The song culminates in WWX accepting what he’s trying to avoid: he’s back, and that means he can’t escape his old enemies. Then he passes out. 

Scene Two. WWX wakes up and realizes he’s in Cloud Recesses. His initial response is panic, but he’s interrupted by ghosts of the past, younger versions of WWX, Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli passing through. WWX muses about whether an additional ghost will appear-- but instead it’s the man himself: Lan Wangji. He asks WWX to take a look at the cursed arm, and WWX demurs, asking whether the illustrious Lan would really want the perspective of a random junior cultivator. LWJ makes it clear he knows exactly who WWX is, but refuses to explain how. WWX agrees to go, but lingers to see a last memory: his younger self teasing a young LWJ. 

LWJ summons the arm and it immediately nearly overpowers them. They realise it’s pointing somewhere, and put together that someone must have deliberately given it to the Jin cultivator. LWJ suggests they follow where it leads, but WWX can’t resist teasing Wangji: “Is That A Rule?” (this structure meets this energy). In counterpoint with their younger selves, WWX asks whether the prim and proper Hanguang-jun will really go tearing off across the countryside with a supposedly-dead criminal, while their younger selves argue over WWX’s constant rule-breaking. They set off. 

Scene Three. We find ourselves in a city street with Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng. The latter sends Jin Ling to stay in an inn while he tries to find Mo Xuanyu. Jin Ling sulks about how great things will be “When I’m The Hero” (every Disney princess song ever). His uncle and father, he sings, fought a war when they were his age, and he’s not allowed to do anything. His uncle is obsessed with finding Wei Wuxian, and even though Jin Ling doesn’t believe he’s alive, if he is, he’ll prove himself by getting revenge for his mother’s death. As the song concludes, he spots LWJ and WWX passing through. He hides and overhears their conversation: the arm has led them this way, and they’ve heard rumors of a man-eating tomb in the forest-- surely that’s where it wants them to go. Jin Ling sees a chance for excitement and adventure, and hurries off to beat them there. 

Scene Four. LWJ and WWX arrive at the supposed man-eating tomb, and find it’s definitely where the arm was leading them. Their arrival seems to awaken the corpses-- and Jin Ling, who is being pulled into their ranks, but is intermittently sufficiently aware of himself to try and fight back. As they fight, LWJ and WWX are able to spot the legs that match the arm, sewn onto a different body. They subdue the corpses and free Jin Ling, but LWJ spots a shadowy figure retreating into the trees. He follows, and as WWX waits for Jin Ling to wake up, Jiang Cheng appears. Cue “Promises,” a Confrontation-style number where Jiang Cheng-- with a full return of the theme music introduced for him in the opening number-- demands answers for what WWX has done. We see the images of their younger selves as Jiang Cheng asks why he betrayed the clan, why he killed their sister, why he never came home. WWX can’t answer. Jin Ling wakes, and just as he does, Jiang Cheng likewise hears a commotion in the trees. He orders JL to guard WWX and goes off to investigate. JL immediately tells WWX that he can go-- he wants to go see what all the ruckus is, too. WWX tells him he should show his uncle more respect, and JL complains that Jiang Cheng’s never been anything but over-protective and cautious. WWX tells him that his uncle was a war hero-- JL insists he knows already-- but WWX explains it was much more than that in another number: “The Miracle Brothers.” Bleeding between WWX’s narration and ensemble flashback, we learn the story of Jiang Cheng’s miraculous return after the fall of Lotus Pier, when rumor had it he’d been captured and had his core crushed by the Wen (kinda The Night That Goldman Spoke kind of vibes, in the combo of narration and emotional intensity). We also see the miraculous return of WWX from capture in the Burial Mounds, and the impossible power they both had when they came back (WWX is embarrassed by his younger self’s arrogance; the music takes a turn for the sinister, but not quite fully. We’re also introduced to a “kill the Wen!” musical motif). WWX sees LWJ coming as the song ends, and JL flees. LWJ admits he created a distraction to lure JC away, but couldn’t catch whoever was initially in the trees. 

Scene Five. LWJ and WWX take a breather for the night. LWJ conks out at 9pm, right on schedule, much to WWX’s delight. He then summons Wen Ning. He asks how he’s alive, what’s been going on, but Wen Ning doesn’t have any good answers. WWX tells him to stick close, but lie low. Once all this is finished, they’ll start new lives together where nobody knows who they are. WWX goes to bed, and doesn’t realize that LWJ heard it all. 

Scene Six. LWJ and WWX awake the next morning to news of an unexpected visitor: Lan Xichen. WWX elects to hide while LWJ talks to his brother, and WWC frets about his memories of “The Twin Jades of Lan” (and a return of Xichen’s theme from the first number): both perfect and both perfectly morally upright. The song bleeds into memories of his and LWJ’s conflicts over his new form of cultivation, and WWX finds himself wondering once again why LWJ suddenly doesn’t seem to hate him like he used to. LWJ and LXC both come to talk to WWX, who helps explain about the mysterious arm. LXC is sympathetic to their curiosity, but he feels it’s more important to contain the pieces they’ve found, rather than risk unearthing more danger. WWX is inclined to agree. But as they all prepare to return to Cloud Recesses, they see a distress signal set off by Lan juniors. LWJ and WWX agree to go investigate. 

Scene Seven. The Lan juniors, plus Jin Ling, are in a sticky situation, surrounded by corpses. They find a hiding place, and Lan Sizhui suggests that maybe they could try to turn the corpses to their side. Jin Ling loses his shit: that’s demonic cultivation, that’s what Wei Wuxian used to do, how dare he even suggest that? They start arguing in a partial reprise of Jin Ling’s song from before, and the corpses are encroaching when WWX and LWJ arrive to help fight them off– mostly LWJ. 

WWX asks how they got here, and the juniors say they were led by a series of mysterious incidents. Once the corpses are gone, they get a chance to look around where they are, and find what seems to be an abandoned workshop of some kind. There are pieces of bodies… including the torso and arm of the corpse they’ve been assembling. Jin Ling recognizes this at once: this is a demonic cultivator’s workshop. Somebody’s been experimenting trying to create a creature like the Ghost General, Wen Ning. [If one is feeling really self-indulgent, they find the corpses of A-Qing and Song Lan, who narrate the Yi City Arc in a “Small House of Uncle Thomas” style totally random interlude] 

As the boys squabble, Wei Wuxian sees something else, though: a memory of another brilliant experimenter, Wen Qing. He sees her begging him to “Save My Brother,” only for the tables to turn as they go farther back in the past, and Wei Wuxian begs the same thing of her. Wei Wuxian is overwhelmed, and LWJ insists everyone returns home. Jin Ling says there’s only one place to bring this mysterious corpse: to his other uncle, the Chief Cultivator. We transition to…

Scene Eight. … “Jinlintai,” (aka, JGY’s theme from the first number, kinda the vibes here once they get to the club, only JGY doesn’t come off as so evil, just that Jinlintai is kinda louche) where the boys discuss the incredible rise of Chief Cultivator Jin Guangyao from illegitimate orphan to NMJ’s clerk to spy to head of the Jin and Jin Ling boasts about the luxuries of his clan. JGY comes to greet them, and LXC is unexpectedly with him. JGY welcomes them all graciously, but WWX notices that the arm is acting strangely. He manages to convey to a reluctant LWJ that he’s going to investigate, and slips away. 

JGY leads the juniors off, and LXC and LWJ are left alone. LWJ expresses his surprise at finding LXC here; LXC expresses his concern about LWJ’s recent behavior, and hints that he knows who WWX is. A short reprise of “The Twin Jades” as they both promise to trust each other, as they always have.   

Act One Finale. Wei Wuxian is alone in the treasure chamber, and it doesn’t take him long to find what he’s looking for: the corpse’s head. Specifically, Nie Mingjue’s head.  He offers up an apology to Lan Zhan for the risk he’s about to take, and we begin the “Empathy Dream Ballet” (cf the Carousel Ballet, or the Oklahoma! dream ballet, but I think this would probably have some dialogue or lyrics). As the story of NMJ and JGY’s relationship progresses towards NMJ’s death, the actual Jin Guangyao approaches. As WWX snaps out of the vision, everything fades-- except the actual JGY, who is standing right there. Blackout! 

[k1201a]

I'm not a jc stan, I don't care about jc, chengxian, yunmeng bros. The reason I gave that example is that they're the ones who had a bond at some point but, tbf, I also believe that lxc cared about jgy as a friend? The same goes for xxc and the person he thought was xy. I don't consider any of those ships as crack, just not romantically canon. Crack is a whole different thing 🤷🏻‍♀️ so anon should Google.

Anyways, the problem with you radical hateful people is that you take everything to the extremes. I'm not saying any of these relationship were the most ~devoted and beautiful~ thing in the world and "omg the deserve better!!😩" I'm just saying that they were what you would consider a friend and you love your friends... unless you're literally a sociopath, lmao. And that's what you think of wwx apparently, like even when you talk about wangxian you make it sound as the most superficial and boring shit. Like how you dare make wwx talk about his feelings with lwj, eww, that's not what dudes do. That's what happens when you maybe didn't have a long term rs with a man and believe their façade.

And, well. just as you think everyone projects, I think you're also projecting the lack of people you formed bonds with in your life and that's why you'll reply to some corny post about "the power of love", the oldest trope probably.

Yo DO see these characters as one dimensional that never think about the past, never get sad about it, that barely have thoughts and feelings. Did you know that wwx not wanting jc again in his life doesn't mean he never cared about him? That he sacrificing something important for him (and that it's not just bc he's a Good Dude who only do the correct as you try hard to believe) doesn't mean that they should be friends again? It's like you can't live with the fact that one thing don't cancel the other, that wwx actually doesn't care about jc anymore but he did once and it's ok. And don't even try any kind of discourse about me projecting because I find them relatable, more human, morally gray, imperfect, etc on me... because I hate those too. I hate extremes, I hate when people woobify assholes but also when they make of these characters robots with no feelings. Jc stans are the first but you're the latter. Characters are fictional so they don't have to be "human", even less when most people use it to justify they acting like jerks, but the other extreme is to think they're so empty, and that makes them one dimensional... When it's like the mere idea of wwx having a moment and maybe just pondering about something equals a sob story as dramatic as a telenovela for you and NO. It's not even about that, but that's what obviously happens when you're extremist. You're projecting your views on things as much as them.

But what you’re saying is not what op was talking about. You’re talking about basic friendship, What op was talking about was “love change everything”, mxtx didn’t write that, except for Luo Binghe, that’s my point. OP didn’t say “care”, they said “love”, they went further to characterize that love to be something that change, heal, redeem people. Basic friendship is found in most fiction. It’s present in mxtx’s stories is not the same as saying that’s the message she’s trying to send.

“…that's why you'll reply to some corny post about "the power of love", the oldest trope probably.”

I don’t have problem with this trope, I did say svsss is about that, I just don’t agree all her novels are about that. I think that’s projecting and lazy crowd pleasing. OP just picked one corny thing they think no one would disagree and tag it in ALL major tags, despite the 3 novels are different.

“the oldest trope”. I think that’s why some people force this trope into their reading of every story, they think it should be there, and you can’t go wrong with this interpretation, even when what the author wanted to write got nothing to do with that.

You said you’re not a JC stan but all you talk about is JC and wwx. I said shen yuan did love and saved luo binghe, if I have problem with corn good old fashioned trope, I wouldn’t have said that. You only have problem when I don’t validate your view of jc and wwx’s relationship. You’re projecting on jc. When I said svsss is about love, Didn't I go corny? But it left no impression on you, because to you, I wasn’t corny about the right characters, the characters you project onto. The only thing that triggered you was what I said about jc and wwx lol