#the more i think about him the more my autistic lwj headcanon solidifies

[yiling]

Untamed rewatch Episode 20

Wei Wuxian is back, and would like Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan to know that he’s completely, totally fine, and not torturing people to death to cope or something

-my mom says wen chao is really good at looking crazy lmao

-I GASPED WHEN WWX SHOWED UP WITH THE FLUTE HE’S SO HOT

-god I love this music it’s so eerie and evocative

-the way it’s shown that jiaojiao and wen chao are being tormented by the spirits of people whose deaths they were responsible for...that’s so spicy. shout out to wei wuxian and his deeply twisted, horrific, but powerful sense of justice lmao.

-the scene where lwj and jc investigate all the dead wen cultivators is nice and spooky. I love the horror aspects of this show

-my sister pointed out that when someone tells jc that a woman hanged herself inside the office, he might’ve reacted as he did because he thought it was wen qing :(

-my mom complained about Netflix not translating the seal script on the talismans but my understanding is that it’s not language, as such

-oh I forgot about jiang cheng’s conversation with wen qing here. this is gonna hurt.

-“you have saved me after all” she has more than you know, jiang cheng

-hearing her very deliberately call him sect leader jiang is such a punch in the gut, both cause it’s a reminder of the fact that this man’s whole family is dead now, and because she’s drawing attention to the political situation that means he can’t reasonably help her. I think at this time in his life, jiang cheng really might’ve done everything in his power to protect her and her family, but that’s a narrow window of time, defined by the unstable situation of sunshot, his inexperience as sect leader, and the fact that he’s lost so much. once wei wuxian comes back, I think jiang cheng steps more fully into his role as sect leader, until the idea of protecting the wens is unthinkable.

-“you can save me but you can’t save them all” fuck this hurts so bad looking forward. another way jiang cheng is shown up by his brother - wei wuxian did manage to save wen qing’s family. but it didn’t and couldn’t last, just as she predicted. 

-“he bled from all the holes of his head” is such a cool and gross thing to say lol

-okay again wen zhuliu is funnier on a rewatch. he hates this so much.

-the problem with the soundtrack here is that you sometimes can’t tell whether the flute is meant to be diegetic or not

-god the slowly ratcheting tension of wwx’s entrance... *chef’s kiss*

-when he starts playing, the background fades into the burial mounds for a few moments, and wei wuxian just smiiiiiles...fucking superb you funky little necromancer.

-love this random ghost lady we never see again

-oh boy. oh man. the first time I watched this show I spent episodes 14-19 yelling variations on HUG YOUR SIBLING GODDAMN IT, so when we got The Hug I broke. I think I may have actually cried.

-oh god, an arrangement of the lotus pier theme plays during The Hug

-just as wwx reaches up (slowly, uncertainly) to return the embrace, jiang cheng pulls away

-“how could I have been in the burial mounds? no one can survive that place” that’s as close as you’re going to get to a cry for help huh

-wei wuxian is so much...stiffer, less relaxed. his movements are more controlled, his gestures less expansive than they were pre-burial mounds. he does a little bit of the brat act when lwj talks to him but it looks artificial. he smiles earnestly when jiang cheng talks to him, but it doesn’t last long.

-“as for my temperament, I’m in control of my own mind” famous last words, my dude

-this argument is. oof.

-I’m not clear that it would’ve helped, I don’t think wwx trusted him enough, but if lwj could have just said “I care about you and I want you to be okay, I don’t think you’re in a good place” in so many words...Mm. But he would have to be a very different character. lan zhan is so defined by what he can’t say, what he doesn’t know how to say, and what he does say that gets misinterpreted because he’s expressing himself through the prism of the inflexible rules he was taught. concern on lan wangji looks too much like disapproval for poor neurotic wei wuxian to take it gracefully, and they both suffer for it!

-like, what’s happening here is that to lan zhan, wei wuxian is visibly Not Okay and is using resentful energy, which is fucked up, and jiang cheng is too thrilled over having his shixiong back to really notice. so he points out that resentful energy is really dangerous for the person who uses it, because he’s afraid for wei wuxian. and wei wuxian, on a hair trigger because he just barely survived three months of torture and sensitized to anything that even looks like disapproval by his shitty adoptive parents, interprets this as an insult - how dare you think I can’t handle this? how dare you see I can’t handle this, how dare you see that I’m suffering? and so he gets nasty and cutting, and lan zhan, who i’m absolutely sure doesn’t understand why wei wuxian is angry with him, gets angry right back. and wei wuxian says the most cruel thing he can: “this is an internal measure of yunmeng jiang, it’s none of your concern.” or, the way he’s intending it: i don’t care about your opinion and i don’t care about you. 

-and lan zhan, unable to deal with it anymore, walks out, which we know he does when he’s angry, to go turn the words over in his head. this...honestly gives me autistic lwj feels. he’s trying so, so hard to reach out to wwx when that’s a really hard thing for him to do! he has a hard time relating to people! and he gets rebuffed in a way that makes it clear he’s failed to be a friend like he was trying to be and he doesn’t even know why. (which is not just on him, wwx is Not being forthcoming) and that sure is..an experience. which i have had.

-(i’m also imagining he picked up this method of handling his anger from xichen, personally. just walk away, wangji. don’t fight, no matter how much someone hurts you, no matter how wrong it feels :’)

-lwj’s expression when he listens to them killing wen chao reminds me of the rain scene ._. 

-yanli as a medic feels kind of stereotypical but she’d be good at it

-the way yanli’s face changes when she hears wwx’s voice...i kind of haven’t liked her performance (mostly, i think, because she’s been given so little to do) but this little moment...wow

-my mom really wants to know what happened in the burial mounds! we had a conversation about dizi (wwx’s flute) vs xiao (lxc’s flute) also because. i looked it up lol. I might make a meta post since there’s some interesting details