#lan wangji is my dude that's my guy that's my beloved that's my bro that's my darling

[thoroughlycollected]

i’mmm thinkin bout lan wangji. in the donghua and cql specifically, from the events of the wen indoctrination through the sunshot campaign even more specifically. [spoilers below]

like. dad-he-never-really-met’s dead, brother’s in charge now  but also missing with all the sect’s books, home’s burned down, fellow disciples dead maimed in disarray, leg broken – in his fanciest white robes and a big ass guan like war regalia marching his way to and through the indoctrination refusing to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing the last lan heir (and possibly acting sect leader???) crack.

and then like, cool: false xuanwu is dead, the other hostages made it out, jin zixuan and jiang wanyin came back, wei ying is safe with his family, cool cool cool time to leg it back to gusu – no sword (leg still broken?) – to help rebuild cloud recesses and hold it down til lan xichen comes back. and lotus pier falls! war is coming! and he’s like. coordinating search parties looking for the missing yunmeng children  and the elders don’t like it. that one elder (donghua) comes to him to ask him to chill lest he brings the wrath of the wen back down on them; lwj’s like “but righteousness? not bowing to tyranny?” (v nice lan qiren comes in with the assist and say’s he’s correct). lan wangji doesn’t have much success with finding the yunmeng children in either adaption but he has major success visiting the leaders of smaller clans and sects and rallying them to the cause; lxc comes back with a force of 200+ men ready to fight because lwj went and met them and asked nicely. and now he’s got more free time because his brother’s back and in charge but not a ton of free time because there’s still a war on; what’s he do with all his extra hours? he’s night hunting for the civilians who can’t rely on cultivators anymore because they’re all at war he’s earning a title about it. he’s helping jiang wanyin take out supervisory offices like he’s supposed to he’s also sneaking around with jiang wanyin looking for wei ying.

just a busy busy lad so busy. so responsible! he sees something needs to be done, he goes and he does it. he’s just there ready to work all the time ready, willing, capable, doing his best and it happens that his best is often very good.

[lansplaining]

*rocks up to the fandom meme mad late with drip coffee i made in my own home even though its like 10pm*

sometimes i see posts that express some intense general feeling about my dude, lan wangji. intense like or dislike, extreme affection or disdain, you know, the usual. and – with the exception of people who are super blatant side character fans who are expressing the opinion they adopted from their fav side character – i don’t really believe any of these strong emotion claims (ppl who are actively roleplaying jiang cheng or lan jingyi i believe you i promise pls).

(beginning hyperbolic generalizations in 3,2,1-) as a group fandom just does not ponder lan wangji enough for me to believe many of them actually care the way the suggest they do, and when they do he doesn’t stay the topic of conversation for long. sure, they might start a post about his traumas and woes about his parents and his beloved but strict grumpy uncle but that post will swiftly slide to xichen and the way he approaches relationships and then it turns into 3zun and that turns into Mess lol. maybe they’ll start with how he was raised but don’t be fooled! that is actually just the opportunity to complain about the evil lan sect and all its controlling rules in a trench coat. if you find a post about his relationship with his brother then what you’ve actually found is a post about the tension between the nie bros, the trauma amongst the siblings jin, or Whatever Is Happening In Lotus Pier and the Twin Jades of Lan are actually just there as a comparison point in paragraph three of the essay. more often than any of this, if you think a post is about lan zhan, blink, and it will be wangxian before you hit the author’s note/tags.

secondly, if the fic isn’t a lwj-centric fic then lwj tends to be 1) an objective window into the story, a reliable narrator you can trust to give you the plot with no opinions, thoughts, or feelings about what’s happening 2) a Voice of Judgement an author can use to berate a character they’re mad at with the idea that hanguang-jun can get away with that with minimal fall out and is Convincingly Convicting enough to change the character’s behavior 3) a plot-hole filler – you don’t have to explain why something is true is lwj says it bc he never lies and he probably knows more than you. it’s the maple leaf in the Xuanwu cave over and over 4) a treat for wwx. you don’t have to like lwj or let him speak, just have him in the background for wwx to kiss and beg money from occasionally.

i have to say I’m not /bothered/ by this. i have enough lwj brainrot for all of us I don’t need other people’s thoughts and headcanons i have my own and a corner of fandom that supports me in these things. i know a lot of it is bc mxtx made him all ~mysterious. i just think its funny when people speak so strongly on the guy as if they think of him ever for real at all.

this is fascinating. obviously I spend my times in the JGY/xiyao corners of the fandom, but I am probably one of the people you are talking about in some ways!! i fucking love lan wangji, i experience extreme Feelings about him regularly and he's the reason i fell in love with CQL and ended up on this downward spiral into madness

but if i tried to make a post about him it would be like, 'u know when CQL wangji says 'are there rules already written for everything in the world?' and it permanently altered my brain chemistry? (hand gestures)'. my position on lan wangji is no thoughts, only internal yelling.

however, i think all the patterns you're noticing are so right, especially when it comes to fic. when it comes to meta i sort of get it-- wangji doesn't feel like he NEEDS explanations, he's the main love interest! other characters need their arcs and interests and personalities excavated, whereas his is surely just right out there. but it isn't!

[thoroughlycollected]

I was thinking about this again and these events are probably directly formative in Lan Wangji growing into the kind of man who could be deemed Hanguang-jun.

Like, his brother comes back and the war effort starts in earnest but by now he’s in the habit of identifying problem areas and trying to address them, as well as being intimately familiar with how many resources the Lan have and how few can be reasonably diverted to other things.

So he looks around, he sees that hardly anyone is night hunting for the common people because they’re focused on the war effort, he looks again and sees there’s no one to spare to delegate that to, he looks again and is assured his brother and uncle have the sect well in hand so he just. Does it himself. Over and over until he gets a name and a reputation about it. And then he doesn’t stop when the war ends- he’s mr where the chaos is now.

Regarding the MDZS donghua:

So I was rewatching random episodes, as one does, when I got Lan family feelings.

(First, I should say that I’ve long held the interpretation (headcanon?) that in the Lan Sect if the Sect Leader is indisposed then the “heir apparent” takes over until a proper heir is born and old enough to lead. For this reason as long as QHJ is in seclusion, LQR leads. And depending on adaptation LXC is either an adult or coming into adulthood when the Wen attack, meaning that if QHJ is dead afterwards then LXC is the Sect Leader. And if he’s on the run [indisposed] then his “heir apparent” is LWJ! I’m saying I think that one of the reasons Wangji sprinted back to his people after the false Xuanwu cave rescue is because he was worried about his family foremost and concerned he might technically be in charge secondly.)

So anyway, I’m watching the donghua, it’s episode 12, Lotus Pier just got wrecked, Wangji is vining in his Ancestral Shrine, and this Lan Elder approaches Wangji. According to the Tencent youtube channel’s subtitles the conversation goes—

Lan Elder: Wangji

LWJ (bowing in greeting): Great Uncle (Shufu).

Lan Elder: I heard that you’ve sent disciples to Yunmeng and Meishan to look for the Jiang Clan leader’s daughter and son, and his senior disciple.

LWJ: Yes.

Lan Elder: Wangji, this time Wen Clan of Qishan used a heavy hand and destroyed Jiang Clan of Yunmeng in one night. They even hunted down the three young people at that night. With every effort to kill them all. Do you know why?

LWJ: I understand.

Lan Elder: Then why did you have to help Jiang Clan and get yourself in trouble? Wen Clan of Qishan made such a big deal to deter us just to show it’s the unchallengeable leader of the clans. Who obeys will live and who objects will die. Now the rest of the clans avoid confronting them. Our Lan Clan has been hit hard. It’s better to bide our time and focus on building up strength.

LWJ: Great Uncle, the clans are closely related, the others will be in danger if one of them falls. At times like this, we should contend with the Wen Clan together.

Lan Elder: To contend with? Wen Clan of Qishan is so powerful and strong. How’s it possible to get rid of them easily? The one taking this lead will be the target of Wen Ruohan later. The Cloud Recesses is the legacy that our ancestors have built with hundreds of years of efforts. We shall not ruin it.

LWJ: When a nest falls, all the eggs break. And someone must take the lead.

[Lan Qiren enters the scene]

Lan Elder: Just listen to you, why are you so stubborn? notices LQR Qiren, your timing is perfect. Come on, talk some sense into Wangji.

LQR (bowing in greeting): Uncle, I think what Wangji said was totally right.

Lan Elder: What?

LQR: When a nest falls, all the eggs break. Facing such a crunch, all the clans should join their hands to pull through this. Tomorrow, I’ll hit the road to Qinghe.

Lan Elder: Unbelievable!

And then the Elder leaves! And Lan Qiren encourages Wangji, reminding him that the Elder is only worried about the clan, and then asks Wangji for any updates on Xichen. Wangji hasn’t heard anything and he’s like “no news means good news. He’s smart. He’ll survive this.” and then he asks for updates on the Jiang kids!

And like. Imagine Lan Qiren who knows what it’s like to have your older brother suddenly not there, leaving you in a position of authority you weren’t really trained for, supporting Lan Wangji as he tries to lead his family into the beginning of uncertain times with war on the horizon. Where’s the fic about those uncle-nephew conversations?