#they're both bruised and feeling rejected and a thousand versions of guilty and they're mORONS but they love each other

[amedetoiles]

A meta rant about Yunmeng bros and reconciliation that nobody asked for: I was yelling about this yesterday in the replies with @goblinish but I’m still mad about it lol

I don’t understand the rhetoric that Wei Wuxian reconciling with Jiang Cheng and returning to Lotus Pier is them going back to the way things were and/or Wei Wuxian sacrificing again for Jiang Cheng’s sake or vice versa. That their relationship was toxic and should be left in the past. I’m sorry, but why?

There is a difference between having unhealthy trauma-induced coping mechanisms with internalized insecurities due to truly awful circumstances and genuinely wanting to hurt and treat each other like shit. There is a difference between letting go of toxic and purposefully manipulative relationships (i.e XY and XXC), and both of them choosing and wanting to be brothers again outside of the clusterfuck that is abusive parents, war, genocide, politics, and oh, death. Neither of them asked the other to sacrifice for them. Neither of them wanted that!

The problem was never about not having genuine love and deep loyalty to each other. They loved each other so much! That love is what drove each of them into making the ultimate sacrifices that they made. While their inability to communicate and express that love was certainly harmful, it doesn’t mean the emotion and relationship itself was unhealthy. That was never the problem.

I get that at the end of the novel Wei Wuxian frolics off into the sunset with his beloved, and they travel the world together chasing chaos and helping the poor, raising their son and their collection of adopted juniors. That’s beautiful! It’s romantic! They both absolutely deserve it! But Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji individually are much more than their love story. They have homes. They have families. People and traditions and worlds which have shaped who they are and who they came to be.

Wei Wuxian grew up in Lotus Pier. It built him. His sister and his brother were the first places where he learned the warmth of family, of love, of safety, of support. In perhaps one of his most heartbreaking admissions, he mutters under his breath and says he wants to go back to Lotus Pier even in his dreams. He is so terribly overjoyed when Jiang Cheng invites him into the throne room. To say that Wei Wuxian never felt like he belonged in Yunmeng Jiang or that he doesn’t want to come back is, in my opinion, an incorrect interpretation. When we have so many examples of all the ways in which he loved his family and his sect, and yes, the heartbreaking lengths which he was willing to go to in order to protect them. Sure, a lot of that was intermixed with unhealthy notions of duty and obligation, but it doesn’t erase the love. It doesn’t make it less real or less important to him and who he is.

I am not saying they don’t need time apart. They absolutely do. Wei Wuxian has a hell of a lot he needs to process, and I, for one, am immeasurably glad to see him wander off on his own at the drama’s ending. For the first time since he was fifteen-years-old, Wei Wuxian has a chance to breathe – to decide who he wants to be and what he wants this life, this second chance, to be. Jiang Cheng, too, needs to come to grips with everything that he has learned. He’s finally gotten the answer he has wanted for over two decades. It doesn’t fix everything, and there’s a whole new set of regrets now that he has to work through, but he can finally stop hating himself for trusting and loving his brother. He has lived like an open wound for 13/16 years, and he deserves a fucking nap, ok.

But why, why, should they not get to have each other back? Why should they continue on this stupid farce that they don’t miss each other instead of growing some goddamn balls and talking to each other? Why is the automatic happy ending Wei Wuxian marrying into Gusu Lan Sect and living for the rest of forever in Gusu as his home? He can have multiple homes! It’s a magical world where they have flying swords! They can fucking commute!

There’s no reason why these two shouldn’t get to have each other again. They deserve to learn, to grow, to heal and rebuild to something new, something better than what they had. It won’t be easy, but they should get to try! They should get to have it! They fucking deserve to have it! They want it even if they’re being stubborn Twin Idiots. (Plus, I think you are all underestimating the sheer power of our trouble magnet Jin Ling, courtesy name Jin Rulan, and the various ways in which he constantly throws himself into danger.) Jiang Yanli taught her two little brothers the meaning of love, of forgiveness, of compassion and of understanding. With everything that she imbued into them, how can these two not find their way back to each other?

A man can have his soulmate, his adopted son, his emotional support zombie, his nephew, his duckling juniors, and his little brother. A grape can have his sect, his chaotic disciples, his nephew, his nephew’s annoying friends, his adopted nephew, and his older brother. (This isn’t that post, but a chaotic gremlin, an angry grape, and a mastermind thespian can also rebuild their childhood friendship, just saying.) Happiness isn’t in a single direction.

tl;dr Wei Wuxian’s and Jiang Cheng’s happy endings include each other. Fight me.