#what could wyb not do handstands or something? you've got wires

[crossdressingdeath]

I can't say that there's much about CQL that I care too much for, but 1 thing that I really like is (it's been a while since I watched it so my memory might be foggy) the scene where LWJ is kneeling in the snow holding the cane after his visit to Yiling. It implies that LWJ did say something in WWX and the remnants favor and was punished for it. Either as a warning in a "this is what will happen if you stray again" or they were actively deciding whether to physically punish him as he knelt outside. It would also make some sort of sense on why he didn't seek WWX out anytime after the Yiling visit if he was on a tighter leash. I like using this in my fics when dealing with the time between his visit and the 1 month celebration.

This blank space in LWJs story is both fun and frustrating. Fun cause a fic writer can do so much here writing from his pov. Frustrating cause like bro... What were you doing whilst the love of your life was raising a child on Haunted Corpse Mountain? He specifically sought out WWX 3 times after the SSC and eventually committed treason for him, even if the last one was more impulsive IMO this scenario seems in line with what LWJ would do and start him on the path of questioning things he had taken for granted as true

I guess? But also I’m... not sure I actually like it. See, it kind of gives this sense that LWJ is being punished for associating with WWX. Like, that is pushed so hard in CQL, “Do not associate with evil” and all that. But that’s not the vibe I got from the novel. LWJ was punished for his actions in relation to WWX, yes, and LXC and LQR both blame WWX for “corrupting” LWJ, but I never got the sense that LWJ was being punished for caring about WWX. He was punished for attacking his elders, not because he attacked them for WWX. And that feels important to me? Like, LWJ’s family doesn’t approve of his relationship with WWX but they accept it and don’t punish him for it. I don’t know, maybe I’m just being queer, but a gay man in a society that is explicitly homophobic never getting punished for his love for and later relationship with another man even when he’s punished for the (genuinely and understandably Very Much Not Allowed) things he does because of those feelings feels important. LWJ gets punished, but not because he’s in love with WWX; it’s because his love for WWX leads him to commit treason. WWX is blamed for that, but he’s not actually the reason LWJ is being punished. Meanwhile in CQL... yeah, LWJ is very much being punished for his association with WWX, especially if you’re right and in the scene with the cane he’s being punished for arguing in WWX’s defence. I got the sense that the reason why any attempt LWJ made to argue for WWX and the Wens never comes up is because the Lans kept it quiet because LWJ would be in deep shit if it came out that he’d tried to protect the Yiling Patriarch. No one knows that LWJ was whipped for fighting his own elders to protect WWX (or even that he was whipped at all, as far as I remember) because again, the Lans protected him. There were consequences, but the Lan sect very much did close ranks around him and defend him from what would happen if the sects found out that he was in love with and had tried to help the Yiling Patriarch. Again, maybe this is me being queer, but the idea of a group punishing a member of that group for their actual wrongdoings but also not letting them be punished by an unfair and bigoted world for something they did out of love and that didn’t do any serious or lasting harm (sect leader’s brother or no, if LWJ had done serious and/or permanent damage to the elders he would’ve been in even deeper shit than he was) feels really really important. So CQL changing that and making it clear that LWJ is being punished for his feelings for WWX with the repeated “Do not associate with evil” line and if I remember right removing the fight with the elders from the story... in a version of the story that censors the gay relationship and makes it just Straight With Subtext... well, I do not like that. To make it a little more blatant, I’m pretty sure the “Do not associate with evil” rule only appears in CQL. It may exist in MDZS, but it never comes up.

The blank space in LWJ’s timeline between visits to the Burial Mounds is interesting, and there’s a lot you can do with it, but... making it so that the Lan sect, the sect that defended him from the consequences the other sects would make him face for being in love with WWX and helped raise WWX and LWJ’s kinda-sorta son and sheltered WWX when LWJ brought him back to the Cloud Recesses (even if most of them didn’t know about those two things) and accepted LWJ’s marriage even though they really didn’t like WWX, kept him from helping the Wens and punished him for trying to defend the man he loved isn’t exactly how I’d do it. Especially since there isn’t actually anything suggesting that LWJ was punished for going to Yiling in the book, mostly because... well, why would he be, there’s no rule against it and no mention of him being ordered to stay away from Yiling or WWX, and there’s no word about a rule against trying to defend someone from accusations (except the rule against lying, which the Lans know him well enough to know he wouldn’t do; at worst they’ll assume that he’s letting WWX lie to him and letting himself be convinced that the Evil Yiling Patriarch isn’t actually evil). At this point LWJ has done nothing worthy of punishment. LWJ doesn’t have to be punished for being in love with WWX to start questioning what he was raised to believe, he starts questioning what he was raised to believe because WWX dies! LWJ loves him and believes in his moral compass and he dies anyway! Righteousness alone isn’t enough, because WWX was one of the most righteous people LWJ knew and the sects killed him! So actually, making it so that he reconsiders what he’s learned when it negatively affects him instead of because he tried every rule-abiding method he could think of to help WWX and it did nothing actually weakens his character a bit. By the time he’s committing treason for WWX he’s started to change; he’s given up on following the rules and is willing to do whatever it takes to save the person he loves, and even then it’s not enough. That’s what changes him, not his punishment. It’s the realisation that the sects are not righteous, at least not when acting as a collective with mob mentality in full swing. Every individual Lan we meet is righteous! But only as individuals. As a group they’re just as bad as everyone else.

...This is getting away from me a bit. I guess what I’m trying to say is that while I see your point I think the scene where LWJ is punished with having to hold that cane up is just another aspect of CQL shifting from LWJ being punished for going against his sect’s rules to LWJ getting punished for his feelings for WWX, which wouldn’t be a good look even without the censoring of any aspect that was explicitly gay, so I find it hard to look at it in any sort of positive way. 

Also, it’s not as fun as handstands.