#which I still haven’t posted on here

[emilyartstudio-s]

Sketch Book Clutter 👹

More sketchbook pages and never before seen art on patreon <3!

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

Wei Wuxian and Narrative Agency – Part One

For Xiantober Day One: Genius… albeit stretching the prompt so it refers to MXTX and MDZS itself, but at the end of the day it’s still about WWX – so no harm done!

(Part Two | Part Three | Full version on AO3)

The narrative is a very active player in MDZS’ story. How it presents information, what it chooses to show and omit, often reflects important facets of its themes and characters – Nie Huaisang, for instance, is so good at hiding behind his mask that not even the narrative can hold him accountable; the present day’s storyline as a murder mystery and the slow reveal of information about the past both prompt the reader to think critically about the truth of events, when the importance of thinking critically is an important theme; and the dangers not thinking critically (and instead basing conclusions on rumours without much evidence) are shown by tricking unquestioning readers into the very same trap the cultivation world falls into, as the information given by the title, summary and in-universe rumours – which contradicts how we see actually Wei Wuxian act – turns out to be false.

But nowhere do I love this trait more than in its treatment of Wei Wuxian – and, more specifically, in its way of emphasising his agency. We’re not just told how much his active choices define his character, and we’re not just shown this in-universe through his personality, worldview and the events he causes. I’d argue that this aspect goes a step further, and shapes the structure of the out-of-universe narrative as well.

There are two main ways this happens: one, in how the aspects of Wei Wuxian’s life that are shown and hidden directly tell us what’s important about his character (which is good writing but isn’t necessarily tied to this shaping of the narrative), which is what we’ll explore today; and two, how what’s shown and hidden reflects what Wei Wuxian himself prefers to dwell on, resulting in the narrative respecting his own thoughts and feelings on matters (which very much is tied to it). We’ll explore this at a later date.

But as for now – let’s explore my favourite aspect of MDZS.

(Here, narrative agency will be considered the ability of a character to meaningfully influence their events and the story they’re in.)

Tragedy, Circumstance, Choice

If we simply look at Wei Wuxian’s backstory in a vacuum, it seems almost typically tragic. His  parents died in circumstances beyond his control, he was left alone as a child with nobody to care for him, he was forced to grow up fending for himself on the streets, he was faced with abuse when he finally was taken in… as with all typical woobies, everything simply happened to him, and none of it was good. It’s just another example of the lack of agency being used for sympathy points, right?

…Except there’s one problem with that idea. We don’t actually see any of this.

It would’ve been easy to start the flashbacks during these times. We’re telling the story of Wei Wuxian in (largely) chronological order, and these are likely important experiences for him! But instead of starting in his street days, or evenat the moment Jiang Fengmian took him in*, we start at the lectures in the Cloud Recesses. That’s not even something mentioned in, and therefore something that’s able to disprove, the rumours at the start of the novel. So why is this the case? 

Well, there are multiple reasons – the main one being that MDZS is also Lan Wangji’s (and Wangxian’s) story, and having the flashbacks open with their first meeting is very satisfying. But I want to focus on something else.

This period doesn’t have to be shown, because what happens to Wei Wuxian, especially out of his control, isn’t what’s important about his character.

We’re not even at Lotus Pier here, where Wei Wuxian certainly has more agency than he would’ve had as a young child, but where the harm caused by Madame Yu is still completely out of his control. Here, he has agency! Though there are consequences, he is free to act, and what happens to him is a result of those actions and not of circumstance. Yes, he gets punished more than others who also take those same actions (due to classism); yes, it’s not his choice to be picked on by Lan Qiren in class (yet look how he responds, twisting the situation to his advantage and ending up tricking Lan Qiren into letting him leave, which is what he wanted to do. He is not at all helpless here!); yes, these choices have been influenced by his learned mindset from Madame Yu that punishment is arbitrary and will happen anyway, so you may as well do what you want regardless. But there is cause-and-effect here. It’s not circumstantial tragedy.

Therefore, instead of our first impression of past!Wei Wuxian being that of an unfortunate woobie, it’s of someone who has the freedom, ability and will to choose and act (and that’s after these initial tragic events have taken place). This is compounded by the fact that before we see any of his backstory, we get a similar impression of him in the present day.

If the purpose of his tragic past was to earn him sympathy points, to make us pity him due to how much he was influenced by events out of his control, this would’ve been a terrible way of going about it… and it’s this that betrays the true reason for its existence. Because now, the flashbacks instead show us how little these tragedies define who he is! From the very start, Wei Wuxian isn’t someone defined by circumstances out of his control, but rather by who he is as a person and by what choices he makes in the present day (which is both a mindset in-universe, and a nice little out-of-universe detail that lines up! Because out-of-universe, this means he’s not defined by sympathy points from a backstory, but rather by his great character writing… aka, by who he is as a person and what choices he makes). And this refusal to be defined by tragedy is a conscious choice on his part, too – but we’ll explore that more later. 

The important thing is that this idea of Wei Wuxian isn’t because of what exists in his past, it’s because of what parts of his past are shown to us (as well as what he chooses to do, with agency, in the present). 

Now, if this relationship between what’s displayed and what’s omitted was just a one-time thing, I might’ve considered it a cool detail or a nice way to establish a character, but not something the narrative is actively focusing on. But it’s a pattern that continues throughout the flashbacks. What, arguably, are the two other most important times in Wei Wuxian’s life where he doesn’t have enough agency to meaningfully influence his circumstances? His three months in the Burial Mounds (before escaping – he managed to assume some control of the circumstances but not enough to substantially reduce his suffering in his time there), and his loss and death during the First Siege. And we’re not shown either of them! We skip to when Wei Wuxian has emerged from the Burial Mounds and is torturing the Wens, or we skip to the present day – both times he has agency once more, because, again, what he’s like without it doesn’t matter enough to be shown. 

Furthermore, I’d argue this does actually contrast the other tragic events we see in Wei Wuxian’s later life. Things do go horribly wrong, but it’s either due to choices he knows the consequences of (see: rescuing the Wen Remnants in the first place), or instances where he still has some ability to act in the situation and influence it within the limitations. If he’d had no ability to influence circumstances at Qiongqi path, he would have died in the ambush; if he’d been unable to do that at Nightless City, he would’ve died then, too (of course Lan Wangji helped him escape as well). The attention drawn to him losing control of his actions in both instances is very interesting, but intentional or not, it’s still his actions influencing the plot. And that influence happens to be detrimental. The very ability to act and influence, at a base level,  is not taken away (though, of course, that doesn’t make these events any less tragic).

So, so far, the narrative seems to be telling us that the ability to act and choose is key to Wei Wuxian’s character. And it’s doing it through omitting his moments without agency in favour of instead showing us his moments with it. 

Let’s see if this is echoed in the text itself before we go further – because even with this pattern, nothing would end up mattering if Wei Wuxian’s agency wasn’t actually that important to the story itself. But thankfully it is, and that first impression we get of Wei Wuxian in the Cloud Recesses turns out to very much be accurate! Though there are defining circumstances out of his control that occur, such as the massacre of Lotus Pier, the majority of the important events of his life are due to his own choices. He didn’t happen to be forced to cease traditional cultivation and solely use guidao, didn’t happen to lose his Golden Core in a fight with Wen Zhuliu or due to some force in the Burial Mounds, it was his own choice to give it and his spiritual powers away. He didn’t tragically happen to get targeted by the cultivation world, it was a result of him acting on his morals and protecting the Wen remnants (a choice which he was fully aware of the implications of). He isn’t a protagonist to whom things simply occur, and that activeness and agency is my favourite thing about him. 

That’s not to say that the times Wei Wuxian doesn’t have agency, or feels like he doesn’t have any, don’t exist at all, either – but they are rare enough to have attention directly drawn to them in his internal narration:

Or else what could he do? He could do nothing. He was powerless. Lotus Pier had been destroyed, both Jiang FengMian and Madam Yu were gone, and Jiang Cheng had disappeared as well. He was the only one left, alone, with not even a sword in his hands. He didn’t know anything, he couldn’t do anything! For the first time, he discovered how little his power was. In front of something as large as the QishanWen Sect, it was the same as a mantis trying to stop a chariot. - Chapter 59, EXR translation

(And even in this circumstance, note that he still does force himself to act – to carry on searching for Jiang Cheng, to place his faith in Wen Ning – and does accomplish his goal (albeit with the help of others)! So even in dire situations, he isn’t simply passive. This is actually also the case with his time in the Burial Mounds, almost certainly the First Siege, and even his days on the streets as well (Chapter 20: he did actively fight with dogs to get food despite their danger and his growing fear of them, rather than just waiting and hoping to somehow receive some more). He can’t influence or immediately influence his circumstances, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.)

Overall, although they do influence him, Wei Wuxian is very much who he is in spite of his circumstances, not because of them. We’re shown the importance of his agency both in-universe by the major impacts his choices have on himself and the plot, as well as by narrative presentation – important periods where he lacks the ability to meaningfully influence anything are often mentioned but not directly shown, which suggests that such moments and circumstances aren’t as important to understanding Wei Wuxian’s character as moments where he does have this agency are. And I’d argue this works very well. Depending on the version of the story you consume, you may end up having different interpretations as to how much circumstances were at play nearer the end of his life – but nobody comes out of MDZS thinking about Wei Wuxian, the poor bearer of yet another generically tragic backstory.

(Part Two | Part Three | Full version on AO3)

—

*We are shown this moment in more detail in Chapter 23… but even then, it’s through the framing of Wei Wuxian remembering Jiang Yanli’s narration, not through a flashback proper or even him remembering the experience itself!

[remxedmoon]

isatscryption…

[milogoestogreendale]

THIS VIDEO?!

[deepseawave]

obsessed w the tags on ur last reblog

Omgg, thank you haha, it was a quality post so I just had to appreciate it in full force 😂❤️

Can‘t believe someone would actually enjoy my yapping :,D

[thefloatingwriter]

🌻 beetee post-wiress death. :(

send me a 🌻

oh we’re getting sad in my inbox now ☹️

beetee post-wiress death focuses a lot on hcs i haven’t spoken about on here before so… i might be intentionally vague on this post. i also just don’t like talking about wiress dying. i prefer to just ignore that and pretend lmao.

i don’t think he commits suicide. ik that that was incredibly dark to start off with, but i have seen the hc before, and i don’t agree with it. i do think he thought about it though.

he isn’t very connected with the other victors. katniss doesn’t want to talk to him, considering the bomb, and he doesn’t want to talk to her in fear of what he might say to her (not nice things, that’s for sure). peeta is civil, but since he’s with katniss so much it’s not like he has that many chances to talk to him. he talks to haymitch sometimes, but not all that much. johanna and him didn’t like each other all that much before the rebellion, and that continued post rebellion as well.

really the only victors he talks to semi-regularly are annie and enobaria. i really like the hc that annie and beetee get closer after the rebellion, maybe just because they’re both widows, maybe just for that companionship they both lost. they don’t live together or anything, but they do talk on the phone weekly or biweekly.

beetee checks on enobaria every few weeks directly after the rebellion. she found the constant contact very annoying at first, and confusing since they didn’t have all that many interactions pre-rebellion. at some point, she decided if he wasn’t going to stop, she might as well just get used to it. it’s not that regular as the post-rebellion period continues, but they talk every few months at least.

(above explanation: beetee has a strange companionship with D2 victors, because, usually, like him, they have complex feelings about the murder they committed in the games. he didn’t want to lose the one person who might understand that about him. he also didn’t want the last person he knew of that was also friends with brutus to kill themselves).

he definitely moves back to Three. Three is home to him, and always will be, and i genuinely think that he would hate his life if he lived anywhere else. he definitely missed it in D13.

i do think he lives to like an insanely old age ngl. he definitely made jokes about being immortal.

thank you for the ask anon!! sorry it took a second, i hope you enjoyed regardless 💗💗

[flowering-darkness]

Oooh 🔒 — @edencantstopfallininlove

Hello Eden!! Thank you for sending this in! I hope you’re doing okay~

(source: this post by permafrown)

send me a 🔒 and I’ll tell you a character who I WOULD F/O if I locked the fuck in (to their source) and why! - For this lock, I will say Grusha from Pokémon. Now, this might spark an outcry of “Astral you’re already super into Pokémon!”. And you’d be right to cry out such! But, my interest is quite well-tied to specific games and regions - Kalos, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Reborn (despite that being from a fangame). Paldea and its characters (and Pokémon) are nice, but.. I just didn’t get the same attachment to Violet as a game than I did Y or Pearl or Ruby. My selfship with N is something I feel I can have exist and progress as it does because N shows up so many times in his games, as a rival to the player. The Gym Leaders and Elite Four, however, don’t hold that same prominence in the overall story, and so it feels like any “plot points” of a selfship with Grusha would have to be established or developed “off-screen”, so to speak, compared to how you progress the game when playing it. And I don’t really like doing that, unless I’m able to give my self-insert a lot of lore in her own right (for example Lorenza, though she does also now have several ships set more within the main story of FFXIV than my one with Zero). I may well be able to draw upon the plots of the anime and manga to add in more story, but.. that requires me to actually watch and read those, which I’m not sure I can be motivated to. So, all of this is why he (and also Rika, for the same reasons) will likely remain on the crush list forever.

He is cute, though.

I hope that this was alright as an explanation! Thank you once again for sending something in~

[sundriedsanctum]

this probably sounds exceptionally vain and exceptionally silly but one of my deepest silly fears is that I come across as an unclean person

[solar-halos]

snoopy of the day..?

“wait a minute is snoopy sitting on his own entrails (aka a bunch of unweaved ends)?” my live reaction to that information:

[impossible-rat-babies]

rotating possible eyrie home lore in my brain

[arolesbianism]

I’ve been having a rough few days, but I’ve been feeling a bit better so I decided to make some lil thingies for some spiraling upwards kitties :3

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

People will be all like “Neanderthals were wiped out 😔 idk how tho” and I don’t either, obviously, but I do know that some of my Homo sapiens sapiens ancestors were sucking and fucking Neanderthals who were also some of my ancestors and I feel like it’s a bit of a disservice to great great grandparents Neanderthal. There might no longer be pure Neanderthals or even mostly Neanderthal hybrids, but my (several hundred at least) great grandparents were Neanderthals and Homo sapiens who were sucking and fucking each other and I for one don’t forgor that. This one goes out to you grandma eyebrows *goes crazy on a bone or reed flute*

[no1ryomafan]

My tradition for when I start a new obscure anime is to always go on ao3 to see if there’s a tag and the reaction from me is always one of three things:

“Oh wow this tag actually has surprisingly decent amount of stuff even if it hasn’t been updated much as of late. Still not 100 fics or anything but good to see about 20 that aren’t crossovers.”

“Oh there’s like- one fic in this tag huh. And it was years ago… And everything else is crossovers for some god foresaken reason. I’m gonna have to write something for this eventually.”

“Why the FUCK does this not have a tag do I really have to do this myself?!”

And the only reason I’m not writing more fics for everything I watch since they tend to fall under the second and third option or even if they don’t I end up liking what I watched a lot is because a red robot looms in my mind preventing me to write anything else- Also I’d get really exhausted from carrying so many fandoms when getter already drags me oml.

[museenkuss]

Spn blogs in my recs and they WILL NOT LEAVE.

[ivyloveheart]

Yeah idk I guess I’m just gonna go back to just reblogging things idk. Not really too in the UTMV fandom anymore and I still can’t get many interactions.

[mikesbasementbeets]

changed my mind about the toiling thing i said yesterday… toiling for a 10 hour workday is unquestionably preferable to a job where you just have to be there for the duration and not do anything while keeping up the appearance that you’re doing a job. busywork filled desk jobs are hell (to me)