#or wwx being a bad person cause he isn’t a mind reader and therefore

[mxtxfanatic]

Sometimes I encounter speculation about whether or not Lan Zhang Wuxian was or was not forced to do bad things (kissing without asking, having erotic dreams, the bastard). Whether it was harassment. I won't go into the degree of meaningfulness of these claims now. I just want to point out that I've never once encountered any claims that Wuxian harasses Lan Zhang, even though it's actually just Wuxian who keeps “harassing”, invading personal space and generally trying to cause discomfort in every way possible. And like yes, as readers we know that first of all, Wuxian has no real intentions for anything sexual/romantic to happen (until a certain point, after which he just very much has them), and second of all, that Lan Zhan is not even against it at all, but very much for it. But Wuxian does not know that Lan Zhan is for it. And Wuxian does what he does. Which begs the question, why aren't his actions regarded as outright harassment, huh? Huh? (If it is, I'm not aware of it, enlighten me then). In fact, if Lan Zhang wasn't so actively involved, then Wuxian's actions might have been very discomforting. Well, or they would have been somewhat discomforting for one reason or another (we don't know Lan Zhang's exact thoughts on this, and no thoughts no evidence) because love and involvement do not deprive one of personal boundaries. The very personal boundaries that part of the fandom seems to believe Lan Zhang is not supposed to have. No conclusion, just a thought.

Oh anon, you are very fortunate to not have seen the “Wei Wuxian doesn’t respect boundaries and forced Lan Wangji to like him” camp, because it def exists. On the other hand, I think the the rapist!lwj fanon (because quite honestly, this is just the quiet part of all that discourse) is much more widespread an idea because so many of lwj’s “breach of boundaries” are tied to explicit sex scenes, and many people consider sexual harassment to be either more real or more serious an infraction than other types of harassment (even though I’d argue wwx also sets them up for sexual scenes pre-relationship, they just never become actual sex scenes). There’s also the thing where people view the partner that tops (and I’d say this counts for both queer and straight relationships) as sexually violent, which they supposedly inherit from their position of choice. Wwx can’t “truly” be violent because bottoms can’t “truly” initiate sex; that’s the top’s job, and therefore their realm to violate. Unfortunate but true to how I’ve seen discussions of sexual violation play out in both this discourse and others.

On the other hand, I’m glad you put the “harassment” in quotes because neither character harasses the other with their affections. There’s not a single moment I can think of (pending a reread) where lwj explicitly lays down a boundary that wwx knowingly crosses. Even in the Cloud Recesses arc, wwx isn’t disrespecting lwj’s boundaries, because lwj doesn’t set any. And the moment wwx thinks lwj hates him, he leaves. Them having subsequent misunderstandings and miscommunication in later arcs is not harassment or a violation of boundaries. And as you said, wwx is a willing participant in all of lwj’s “harassment” of him as well. They literally mutually like each other. It does not have to be this complicated.