Latest Posts by staunchen - Page 6

:bangs hands on the table: JIUJIU JIUJIU JIUJIU. Teeny waist, dressed to kill, whip in one hand nephew in the other, happy birthday you beautiful disaster man you’ve ruined my whole life

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng’s (Lack of) Brotherhood

In fanfiction, it is extremely frequent to see Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng refer to one another as “brother”, either in dialogue, or described as such through the narrative. This always struck me as hitting the wrong note, because in the actual narrative of Mo Dao Zu Shi there is not a single instance where the word “brother” is used to refer to one another, not even once.

Yet it is obvious why fanfics go there. It does fittingly describe the nature of their relationship. Wei Wuxian was brought back to Yunmeng by Jiang Fengmian to be raised by him in a way that looks much more like an adoption than anything. It is probable that the main reason that he didn’t formally adopt Wei Wuxian was because Yu Ziyuan would never have stood by it. Despite her opposition and her worry that Wei Wuxian might usurp Jiang Cheng’s place as heir to the sect, it is obvious that Wei Wuxian wasn’t treated as a servant (as the son of a servant) or as a simple disciple. He was part of the family unit in more ways than not, and they grew up close and their relationship displayed a kind of intimacy and rivalry that is typical of brotherhood.

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ok i've never read the novel but your tags on that post about jc and matchmaker requirements...mxtx girl i don't think you wrote what you thought you wrote lmao (jc noticing beauty? doesn't seem like he does sorry that's whats on the page)

Exactly!! The only time that novel Jiang Cheng is even hinted at having sexual thoughts is when (after loudly decrying NHS and WWX for looking at spring books) he wakes up with a book next to his head.

I do kind of sort of enjoy the idea that MXTX shared, that while that's his list for the matchmakers, that's not actually what he wants in a wife. Emotional vulnerability? 0%, he can't be targeted. Tactical evasion: A+++. No one will ever know he wants to be held!!!

Late night brain blast but JC gets transported back in time to when his parent’s generation was studying at Cloud Recesses and manages to blow everyone away. JC being the strong confident self he becomes during crisis because come hell or high water he’s getting back to his nephew, thus attracting everyone’s attention and awakening some crushes. Everyone initially assumes he’s from the past and that he’s JFM’s ancestor, which makes JFM feel inadequate as he should, especially with how starstruck his SIC is by him. LQR being the youngest and having the biggest crush on JC because he talks to him like his opinion really matters and doesn’t focus on whatever heroics his elder brother has done this week. I just think it could be fun and full of shenanigans.

Anon, this is absolutely incredible, and I feel like @not-rude-ginger needs to see this ASAP. More to add later when I'm done being raked over the coals by this zcx fic.

Im so sad that predatory bulldykes corrupting femmes into having nasty lesbo sex with them is made up by rightwing homophobes because that sounds really hot. I want that for myself

I feel like JC has some weird gender shit going on. Not even in the normal sense; in the ‘assigned ruined woman by the narrative’ sense. Like. Wow. JC, you really gonna get called childhood sweethearts with your rogueish evil shixiong? JC, you really gonna be left alone with naught but a single child, a widow in all but name? Wangji is out there trying to assign himself widower vibes but JC is getting constant woman scorned and wronged wife energies forced upon him from get-go.

Even his father was like *looking at an eight year old* “I see my nagging wife in you”

THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING

his parents really took a glance at that toddler and decided to project the most unhinged gender possible on him. JC, assigned neglected wife at birth.

JC performs it so conscientiously too! It's so so so important to how he is with WWX and how he views himself. 9yo JC after he's known WWX: "there he is. the cad that will break my heart." and can't ever everrrrrr stop loving WWX or break away from the utter grip WWX has on him. JC has known since before WWX came into his life that he was made to be neglected/scorned, by the person supposed to stand by his side and to whom he's supposed to be loyal.

Also lmao at the left with a child thing. It's totally that, except JC WISHES he was a widow!!! He's not even granted that dignity by society! But nah he's the ruined woman who was seduced and abandoned by someone who promised her marriage and then went off and died after making her look for a fool, while she was making excuses for him, and everyone knows what a chump JC was for it! Was WWX lying all along? Was is ever even real ?

(JC gets the answer to that question when WWX breaks it off at the temple by telling him nah, it was only duty to JC's family that made stick by JC's side. Probably not how WWX meant it! But wow, way to put it the least personal possible way. WWX's most intimate organ in JC's body had nothing to do with feelings for JC or JC as a person. Way to make sure JC never, ever reaches out for fear of being that nagging, clingy, shrewish, needy embarrassment of a person)

The lack of a meaningful relationship in the past for wangxian, has made me a chengxian shipper (imo that's why so much vitriol against jc)

oh my god anon. anon.

this genuinely never occurred to me before, because I am highly indifferent to shipping and forget that it is a life-or-death situation in other corners of fandom, and so I have been sitting here figuring that oh, they just hate JC because they have no reading or viewing comprehension and think he hates WWX

BUT I THINK YOU'RE RIGHT

BECAUSE JC IS A REMINDER OF WWX'S LIFE BEYOND LWJ

and the enmeshment and shared history the two of them have going on is something that LWJ does not and cannot share, because it happened already! it is written! it's done! whereas Wangxian's current shared story theoretically could include JC unless pains are taken to keep him out.

no bc deweysquared omegaverse dynamic is like. connor won't let brandon do a mating bite because he thinks that's archaic and brandon gets so horny about it that connor's like dude. connor keeps him on a leash sometimes and that's not better. brandon won't stop trying to scent him at practice so connor's like i'm exiling you to the other side of the ice until you're normal again. both of them know connor loses his mind when brandon talks abt breeding him but neither of them are willing to say a word about it because that would be weird or whatever. literally the entire rest of the team is like can you PLEASE just figure whatever you're doing out because the rest of us would like to stop having to reapply scent blockers every two seconds bc you can't keep it in ur pants. brandon keeps begging connor to get hitched and connor is like no and also no <3 but i can pretend to give you a mating bite if it would chill you out for five minutes

if it's deweysquared omegaverse time I suppose I should share the abandoned plan I had over a year ago where they were a background pairing and their arc was like. connor is an omega and brandon is a beta who hates himself for it (bc he can't be what connor needs)

Hiii! I've read your tags about how wwx wouldn't probably do the core's transfer with lz because in his mind they are equals. So, do you think in some way wwx thinks less of jc? I am just very curious because it seems an interesting interpretation!

I mean, yeah, kinda, he does! He loves Jiang Cheng immensely, but there is absolutely a dynamic between them where Wei Wuxian considers it his job to protect Jiang Cheng from all forms of harm, whether Jiang Cheng wants to be protected or not. It’s complicated, and I think it’s kind of multifaceted. There’s an Older Sibling element to it (although it is canonically unclear exactly what the age difference is between them, and it’s not more than a year at most), there’s a your-father-took-me-in-and-I-owe-him element to it, and there’s the part where WWX has always been a step ahead of JC in all their mutual accomplishments (never mind that JC’s own accomplishments are very impressive! The view looks different from inside a sibling relationship, trust me on this one).

And also, I think there’s also the three-way mutual awareness between him, JC, and Jiang Yanli of how much emotional harm the Jiang parents are managing to inflict on each of them, and a deliberate effort on each of their parts to try to shield one another from that harm—but of the three of them, JC shows those emotional wounds the most overtly, because WWX and JYL repress their unhappiness (out of the shared, destructive belief that showing negative emotions to your loved ones is bad) while JC channels his into anger, yells, stomps off and openly sulks about it, etc, which is more recognizable as unhappiness. I suspect WWX has spent a lot of time doing what he does leading up to the Twin Prides speech/promise to be JC’s right hand man when he’s the sect leader: running after a JC whose feelings have been hurt, and giving him a hug or otherwise trying to cheer him up, because he can’t stand the sight of Jiang Cheng’s open unhappiness, and has to try to fix it.

The core transfer was objectively an insane extreme—so insane no one suspected it, because there was no precedent for it!—and one WWX was driven to not just by fear for JC, but also the overwhelming guilt from the belief that he was responsible for bringing the Wen to Lotus Pier in the first place (wrongly, of course, but Madame Yu spent her final words explicitly blaming him for it, JC repeated those words when he was having his own grief breakdown immediately after seeing his parents’ dead bodies, and then JYL dodged the question when WWX asked her if it was true, so you can understand where WWX’s head’s at at that point), and then guilt that he’d failed Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan in their explicit command to him to protect Jiang Cheng, by letting JC run off all headstrong and get caught by the Wen. The core transfer is both a OTT gesture to Fix Jiang Cheng, The One Who Must Always Be Protected, and a way for WWX to punish himself for failing to protect JC leading up to this moment (getting JC’s family slaughtered and home burned, letting JC get captured and tortured and maimed, because obviously the only person with any agency or control in this situation is Wei Wuxian himself!). There’s really no other character in the whole narrative that could push all the right buttons to get WWX to do something as extreme as the core transfer, not even Jiang Yanli (who on paper is physically softer and squishier than JC, but who is also clearly someone WWX views first and foremost as a caretaker) because Jiang Cheng is the only person he loves that much AND fundamentally insists on viewing as unable to take care of himself.

(In contrast to all this, five minutes after WWX meets Lan Wangji, he’s excitedly declaring that he’s finally met his equal in life. It’ll be a while before Wangxian get to developing the big swoony romantic feelings, but right from the start, WWX affords LWJ a level of personal respect he never shows to Jiang Cheng, Baby Brother.)

I will also add that Jiang Cheng is clearly aware that WWX sees him this way, and it drives him up a fucking wall. He obviously loves WWX and he absolutely wants him around, but I think he also wants an equality in their relationship that WWX consistently denies him, and that that is definitely part of his angst over the core transfer when he finds out—to him, it’s kind of the ultimate statement that WWX thinks JC is too weak to make it without him.

I do think there’s hope for them, post-canon, since they’re now alive and their relationship has the chance to continue to mature! But it’s going to require WWX to take JC out of that mental box he’s constructed for him marked “Fragile: Handle With Care” and to learn to respect JC’s choices and autonomy. Recognizing that JC managed to survive without him and continued to build the Jiang back up from nothing to being a great sect again will probably help!

I'm not sure if tumblr allows any kind of hornee content now

Anyways, drawing hands SUCKS

I truly believe Wei Wuxian wouldn't be able to live in a world where there is no Jiang Cheng. Throughout his life Jiang Cheng has always been a presence there, a figure that bleeds into the background on mundane days and outshines even the sun on the brightest. Wei Wuxian has always lived with the knowledge that Jiang Cheng was safe somewhere.

Even when he's Yiling Laozu, in the back of his mind he knows Jiang Cheng is out there, breathing, fighting. He sees him often despite exiling himself, has Jiang Cheng practically knocking on his front door even when the world sees them as enemies.

And even when he comes back as Mo Xuanyu, Jiang Cheng lurks in the background. He knows by filtered gossip that Jiang Cheng is safe, that he's in the highest position to be so, that the core that spins in him has kept that promise of protection. Wei Wuxian can keep his distance because he knows Jiang Cheng can protect himself, understands that being around him would only cause more pain for them both.

And yet if harm came Jiang Cheng's way, no matter how far across the land Wei Wuxian was, he'd know and he'd come running.

And if Jiang Cheng died then Yiling Laozu would show himself again.

Jiang Cheng, on the other hand, has to live. It's not just his pride that keeps him alive but his honour for his family, his sect. He cannot let his own life end when he needs to avenge theirs, when he holds a little Jin Ling in his arms and knows he needs to protect that child. But the death of Wei Wuxian? That kills his spirit, takes a small part of who he is away. That's the reason why he continues to hunt Demonic Cultivators, why he tries to reason with himself that Wei Wuxian isn't dead, that there's a way to find him, bring him back kicking and screaming if he has to. Jiang Cheng refuses to acknowledge the death of Wei Wuxian because if he does then that means it's real, right? And Jiang Cheng would have to live with the knowledge that the only last person to know who he was, Jiang Cheng and not Sandu Shengshou, A-Cheng and not Jiang-Zongzhu, was truly utterly gone.

They really are the soulmates born in the wrong place at the wrong time.

woke up today with a mighty urge to put chengxian in a haunted house

If JC ever got turned into a woman I think he would end up looking like his mother, not sure what he would think of that (or WWX) but I doubt it would be nice.

I think he'd be a slightly softer clone of her, thanks to the influence of Jiang genes. Jiang Cheng loved his mother very much, so seeing her again in his reflection would be bittersweet. Personally, I think this would lead to him trying to arrange his hair like she wore hers; but since she had two handmaids who likely styled it for her, I think he'd end up frustrated and stuffing it into his usual bun.

Wei Wuxian canonically thought she was super hot, and he's a bi mess. Since her last words to him were "I hate you" and he can't distinguish between Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Cheng, he'd proceed to rewrite his memories even harder. But only after sneaking around so he could catch a glimpse of his hot little shimei. And probably saying "wow, Lan Zhan, did you think Jiang Cheng could get prettier? Hahaha, it's too bad about his personality" while Lan Wangji fantasized about throwing Jiang Cheng down a well.

More importantly, Jiang Cheng would definitely realize he could get pregnant two minutes after his body was changed, and then he'd be an agender king about it.

'replacing jc in someone's affection' I am crying! wwx doesn't do it once but twice! It's fascinating! Also, this makes me understand why some people, reading the novel, come to the conclusion that wwx doesn't care anymore about jc. Yeah, it's a valid interpretation!

Listen, I just rotated, and rotated, and rotated this scenario (—because, like, both child and adult Wei Wuxian are sincerely in need of support and affection, but I think receiving it as a child while it was withheld from someone he loved, what might have seemed like taking it away from someone who also needed it, also contributed to his boundary problems and self-sacrificial tendencies and eventual resentment—like he needs it but it hurts someone he loves deeply when he gets it but he still needs it, how can he reconcile these conflicting truths?? OK I will stop now—) and, uh, have a tiny little sketch of that zhanchengxian fic concept below, with which I will exorcise my sad past chengxian/past zhancheng/current wangxian thoughts.

It was going to be a perfect triple triple drabble but I needed 80 more words in the centre section to describe Jiang Cheng's tears. You know how it is.

Pursued by Lesser Ghosts

At first he was busy and grateful for it.

Then, Jin Ling settled, elders cowed, sect in order, Jiang Cheng was forced to returned to Lotus Pier. Empty, now.

His sect ran as it always did. He slept poorly. He dreamed often. He walked up and down the pier at night, pursued by lesser ghosts, echoes of people who were alive, just gone. His own life closed around him as tight as any noose, one long merciless sequence of work, sleep, work.

He had a minor qi deviation.

“Go back to dual cultivation,” said the doctor.

“That’s no longer possible,” he said.

The doctor looked up. When Jiang Cheng didn’t say anything else, she said, “Well. Come here for acupuncture once a week. Consider visiting Jin Ling.”

Relax, she didn’t bother to say.

Jiang Ping, his one surviving cousin, took tea with him, and said: “I know things have been stressful. Perhaps you would consider marriage now?”

“I didn’t think marriage was relaxing,” said Jiang Cheng, drily.

“It can be. After everything, well… it’s nice to have someone there.” Jiang Ping looked up, thinking. “Having someone there and working a lot. I don’t think it’s possible for Sect Leader to work harder, so you’ll have to try the other thing.”

Jiang Cheng let out a snort despite himself. Jiang Ping grinned at him.

He could get married, he supposed. What was there to prevent him?

He didn’t call for a matchmaker. He worked harder, kept himself so busy he could hardly think, but at night, laying in his bed, he ached with loneliness before sleep. And in sleep, he saw them, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian both, invariably walking away from him, hand in hand.

Sometimes he was silent; sometimes he called to them. It didn’t matter. They never turned around.

-

In Wei Wuxian’s dream, it was high summer, air as thick as syrup, and he was lying under the trees along the riverbank with his head in Jiang Cheng’s lap.

Above him, Jiang Cheng was eating tanghulu. Playfully, Wei Wuxian opened his mouth like a baby bird, and Jiang Cheng, rolling his eyes, took a piece of fruit and fed it to him, red and almost glowing. His index finger brushed against Wei Wuxian’s mouth.

Sometimes, he dreamed and he didn’t know whether it was just a dream or a fragment of a memory. He thought this might have happened—he faintly remembered begging Jiang Cheng to let him rest his head in his lap, across his narrow, muscled thighs.

Suddenly it was night, and Jiang Cheng was gone.

“Jiang Cheng?” called Wei Wuxian, and found his voice was a child’s voice, high-pitched and nervous. “Jiang Cheng?”

He rushed through Lotus Pier, now dark and empty, towards Jiang Cheng’s room. Then, in the way of dreams, Jiang Cheng was in front of him, a child again, too, face swollen with tears as he wept alone on the pier.

Wei Wuxian froze, panicked.

Someone picked him up; Uncle Jiang had appeared. But instead of saying anything, he turned and walked away. “Uncle Jiang,” Wei Wuxian whispered, but Jiang Fengmian didn’t respond.

All Wei Wuxian could do was look over Uncle Jiang’s shoulder at Jiang Cheng, at his crumpled, sobbing face. You don’t understand, he thought, suddenly, I love you but I need this, I need it, I need it.

That face changed again, blurred into Jiang Cheng's adult face, still weeping as he knelt on the pier. And then the strong arms around him weren’t Uncle Jiang’s but Lan Zhan’s, holding him tight in a bridal carry, taking him away as he squirmed to look back, to not look away from Jiang Cheng’s face, they had been so happy only a moment ago—

Wei Wuxian woke late, his face wet. Went to look for a handkerchief. Opened a drawer he hadn’t looked in before to find: two purple hair ribbons. An open jar of salve, carved with the insignia of a well-known Yunmeng herbalist. And a lavender handkerchief, embroidered with a little frog. Wei Wuxian traced it gently with his thumb.

-

The day was a little crisp, but bright and beautiful. Lan Wangji had risen at the appointed time, eaten breakfast serenely with the sect, and taught some advanced guqin lessons. Lan Sizhui was coming along beautifully, playing more delicate and precise every day, a delight to teach.

Everything was just as it should be in the Cloud Recesses, but Lan Wangji was still somehow uneasy.

He had gained everything he had dreamed of as a teenager, in one bewildering fell swoop. His life had been overturned, but for the better, the man he had wanted for so long delivered to him on a silver platter. He was unbelievably lucky.

Of course, he grieved what had happened to his brother. Lan Xichen deserved only good things. It was bitter to find out someone you had loved so deeply had deceived you—had failed you—had abandoned you.

But with the exception of that dark spot, the suffering and absence of his brother, his life was everything he had ever asked for, wasn’t it? A pristine life, on the surface.

If there was a dark shadow underneath, the ripple of something passing through a lake on a sunny day—something slipping out of an incautious hand, lost to the water—that too was life, wasn’t it?

He had never been so happy in his life. He had never before been so happy in his life, as he had once imagined it.

He averted his eyes from that shadow.

Until, one day, he returned home, and found Wei Ying, sitting at the room’s low table, holding a handkerchief in one hand. Remnants of a different life that had collected in his home. No—that he had kept. Gripped tightly.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying said, brightly, face stretched in a brittle smile. “What’s this?”

what's the most insane thing you've seen either JC or WWX do for the other one in a fic that wasn't, in any way, chengxian?

reblog or put your answer in the tags please, I'm curious

I'll start: not-interested-in-sex-work JC starting to do irl sex work bc WWX wasn't paying his half of the rent and he didn't want to pressure WWX into keeping jobs WWX didn't want. never telling WWX about it either ofc.

yurifies phantom of the opera .𖥔 ݁ ˖

having a lot of thoughts this evening about the classic yunmeng reconciliation trope of “magic plot device forces the jiang cheng sacrifice reveal” running head first into “wei wuxian is canonically The Worst™ at boundaries” and in cql canon literally sticks a mind control talisman on lwj for a prank and it’s never mentioned again

so like. picture this. Jiang Cheng has a secret. no, not that secret, some other secret. something smaller and almost as sad and maybe even a little tawdry??? Jiang Cheng has fucked, is what I’m saying. and there’s some monster who eats virgins and Wei Wuxian is GLEEFUL at the opportunity to SWOOP IN AND SAVE HIS SHIDI, of course he and hanguang-jun will take care of it chengcheng, only for extremely grumpy jiang cheng to red-facedly inform his brother that he is NOT a virgin and he can lead his own night hunts THANK YOU

and the top of wei wuxian’s head comes off

Jiang Cheng. JIANG CHENG. His tiny baby awkward blushing foot-in-mouth shidi. JIANG CHENG. Jiang Cheng who was blacklisted by the matchmakers. Jiang Cheng who was supposed to be SAVING HIMSELF FOR MARRIAGE LIKE A PROPER YOUNG SECT HEIR. jiang cheng has fucked. 

Wei Wuxian has to know. he HAS to know. he is insane. he is bothering jiang cheng CONSTANTLY. he will not shut up. he will never shut up. Jiang Cheng will not know peace until he reveals to Wei Wuxian who dared to sully his precious baby brother with their slutty hands!!!!

but of course it’s like…sad. a few doomed wartime trysts with Nie Mingjue, or a single slow aching fumbling goodbye with Wen Qing who decided she didn’t want to die a virgin, or a few companionable years falling exhausted into bed with Jin Guangyao and/or Qin Su once the boys were FINALLY asleep…or for maximum gut punch, maybe it’s the old standby where Jiang Cheng was raped after his capture. 

the point is, this isn’t a fun funny sexy story for Jiang Cheng, this isn’t an exploit to crow over or an embarrassing but ultimately warm encounter. this is an old, quiet, painful, pointless memory of something tragic that Jiang Cheng still feels miserable about, and also thinks he’s pathetic for feeling miserable, and also it’s fucking private. so no matter how much WWX whines and wheedles and threatens and cajoles and begs, he won’t tell. he gets angry and snappish at first, and then instead of cracking, he just starts retreating into himself and not responding to WWX any more, which is, obviously, UNacceptable!!! 

the minute the evil not-unicorn is dead wwx invents a truth talisman in a 76-hour frenzy, slams it on jiang cheng’s back, and gets more than he bargained for

so do you think wwx would still do the core transplant if he knew why jc lost his core? i think he might

Oh yeah. Actually it might depend on what scenario we're talking about here? Is this an AU where JC mumbles out the truth when feverish or something, or is this a time travel situation? Regardless, the following remain true:

Wei Wuxian loves Jiang Cheng very much and JC being sad in his vicinity is basically intolerable to him

Wei Wuxian considers himself to owe a debt to the Jiang

Wei Wuxian loves Lotus Pier and wants it restored and Jiang Cheng is the best chance they have

Wei Wuxian has rock bottom self worth and sky high self esteem, which means he does not consider himself of value while also simultaneously thinking he knows best and has the right to make decisions for other people

Obviously in canon or in a time travel AU where he didn't find out, he's ripping his organs out. If he does know, it kind of depends on timing. Teen WWX who heard JC's mumbled confession is drowning in guilt and self hatred and does it immediately. In some ways this improves the state of their relationship, because WWX now knows that Jiang Cheng considers him more important than his own life or even the sect. He's extremely upset by this, because "Your brother loves you" is the most devastating blow for either of them, but he is not questioning whether JC sees him as family in the same way as in canon. Wei Wuxian had to really tell himself over and over to consider the transfer as repayment or redemption to be alright with it, but this WWX is possibly trying to invent skin grafts to get rid of JC's scars. This is not a positive, but it does change things. However this also means that if JC ever finds out, not only will WWX have tricked him into a procedure he wouldn't have wanted, he purposefully and knowingly overrode his choice. This creates tension in relationships.

If it's time travelling WWX, if he has just found out and/or they haven't fully reconciled, he's having the same breakdown JC had in the Ancestral Hall and once again rips out his organs, possibly while whispering "Thank you and I'm sorry" because character development is not linear and WWX gets a little unhinged about his family. However if they've worked through things and communicated and hashed out where things went wrong and what they want their relationship to look like now and how they're going to achieve this, I think they can develop healthier habits. Wei Wuxian's postcanon advice to Jin Ling is to let himself rely on Jiang Cheng because being pushed away for his own good will just make him feel abandoned, and to respect JC's decision to risk his reputation to help and trust him to handle himself. As wildly hypocritical as this sounds, I think WWX has pretty clearly done some thinking about where he fucked up on that one. If WWX is able to come to this conclusion on his own without having worked through things with Jiang Cheng, I think he is capable of admitting that the core transfer while done out of love was maybe a touch fucked up. I do believe in these clowns being able to talk about the way they hurt each other and were hurt in turn and the misunderstandings between them. Wei Wuxian's character arc hasn't stopped at the end of the story, there's a reason WWX has that moment after Wen Qing and Wen Ning sacrifice themselves for him where he suddenly understands why Jiang Cheng hates when he does this. I think we can even out the self worth/self esteem ratio so WWX isn't constantly sacrificing himself because he knows best, and trusting JC specifically to make his own choices.

...Or at least that was what I was triumphantly going to say, until I saw a relevant gifset and contemplated Wei Wuxian suddenly being faced with a devastated Babie Jiang Cheng for the first time in decades. Jiang Cheng crying is already kind of a one hit KO for Wei Wuxian when they're the same age, can he really look at Babie JC's lip wobble without folding like a cheap lawn chair? I have long thought about them growing past their old mistakes and was confident that WWX could get there but now I am reconsidering this.

so i was thinking about lan wangji and how he has this reputation of being righteous while also in my opinion acting like an asshole? like he acts very petty and is ready to pull his sword on people a lot and isn't really involved in politics even in a way that makes sense as a high ranking member of a sect? like the silencing spell on jin ling is uh. bad.

it's like lan wangji has scary dog privilege by virtue of his reputation and his brother and uncle who will wreck you if you do or say anything to/about him. except thats not right because theyre not scary dogs at all, they just protect him. it's like lan wangji is a scary dog and lan xichen and lan qiren smooth things over and stop him from doing something too awful and calm others down after lan wangji does something not too great. and i guess with the reputation for being righteous (second jade of lan) is enough to deter people from saying/doing things like "hey he's a dick" because dude that's hanguang-jun, what are you talking about???".

and the people he saves on night hunts or whatever are random civilians who don't interact with him enough to see him behave badly, and a cool and aloof powerful cultivator saving them gets a lot of leeway on account of being a famous powerful cultivator and also being someone who saved them from fierce corpses or spirits or healed their kid or grandparent or whatever. who cares if theyre quiet and kinda rude they saved their sister!!!!!

so when lan wangji is a dick to jin ling or fucks off from political stuff or is ready to pull his sword on jiang cheng in the jiang ancestral hall or whatever he's doing so with the reputation of hanguang-jun who saves people and also is supported by lan xichen (lan sect leader and brother) and lan qiren (former acting sect leader, uncle, teacher) and they are protective and dare i say overindulgent of lan wangji???? like bro you are a political figure whether you like it or not, your actions have effects on things besides your own direct personal circle. like the heir of gusu lan pulling a sword on sect leader jiang is fucking political incident whether or not theyre both being assholes or not. the adult heir of gusu lan using the lan silencing spell on the teenage heir of lanling jin is a political incident. not engaging with other sects politically, ever, says important things about your priorities and your influence both within the sect and without.

also like. what if something happened to gusu lan? like say lan xichen is injured, and lan qiren is also out of commission for some reason? that means lan wangji is acting sect leader. can you IMAGINE lan wangji as sect leader. imagine it. really visualize it. there's a lot of jokes about lan wangji being a petty bitch and people love it but imagine a petty bitch as a sect leader. the situation would blow up faster than lans get drunk on a glass of wine. like dude. so much stuff would be totally fucked.

anyway lan wangji as he is in mdzs would be a shit sect leader/chief cultivator/etc. he doesn't behave like he's intimately involved in the politics of his world (which he is) and may or may not have training in doing so - maybe he has training and just doesn't do it? which is also really bad, then he would know better and still not do it or help in any way.

More content brought to you courtesy of chronic insomnia: lately I have been banging the drum that actually I think Wei Wuxian needs to know about “take care”. It would be good for him, once he stopping having an epic meltdown about it and what it signified for his relationship with Jiang Cheng, The One Whom Must Be Protected Always, and it’s critical to the evolution of said relationship. The big problem here is that do we think Jiang Cheng is likely to bring up this incredibly pertinent fact now? After sixteen years of never feeling that it was worth mentioning that he let himself be captured by his family’s murderers specifically to distract them from Wei Wuxian? Do we think he’s going to bring this up now, when he knows that the golden core that replaced the one he lost to the Wens came from Wei Wuxian, who suffered immense harm from it, thus rendering Jiang Cheng’s own sacrifice meaningless (he probably feels)? Besties, we do not.

The question, therefore, is how can someone find out, and pass this information on to Wei Wuxian, ideally in some relatively blithe way that is not remotely going to prepare him for the emotional shock of it. So far I have:

Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji end up on a night hunt together and get idk briefly trapped in a haunted cave that plays out visions of emotionally significant past events. Lan Wangji thinks very little about the revelation that Jiang Cheng once risked his life to save Wei Ying. It’s no less than Wei Ying deserved, after all. If anything, he’s thinking about how embarrassing it is that Jiang Wanyin just saw his teenage library sex fantasies. It takes awhile before the subject of oh, so that’s how Jiang Wanyin lost his core comes up between him and Wei Ying, and he’s confused when WWX hightails it outta the Cloud Recesses on his way to Lotus Pier so fast he leaves one of those little cartoon dust clouds.

Jiang Cheng mumbled something about it to Wen Ning while Wen Ning was rescuing him from Lotus Pier. He has no memory of this. Wen Ning didn’t think it mattered at the time, and never mentioned it. If it’s occurred to him since that actually, this would be a pretty big deal to Wei-gongzi, he’s currently withholding it out of spite because ugh, fuck Jiang Wanyin, actually. He’ll only bring it up if there’s an opportunity to do so in a way that’s insulting to him, and oops, he did know this might bother Wei-gongzi a little bit, but he wasn’t expecting the BSOD—Wei-gongzi, maybe I shouldn’t have said that, Wei-gongzi, are you all right—

Jin Ling weaseled it out of Jiang Cheng years ago, long before Wei Wuxian came back. He gets that Jiujiu doesn’t like to talk about any of this shit, though, so it’s only months or years after Da-jiu comes into Jin Ling’s life that the subject comes up. He’s just matter-of-factly correcting the record, after Wei Wuxian mentions that Jiang Cheng was captured by the Wen trying to retrieve his parent’s bodies from Lotus Pier. (He was just trying to explain what a big deal family is to Jiang Cheng! I mean it was a bad idea, but it was very filial of him.) WWX is like what the fuck who told you that that can’t be right, and Jin Ling says Jiujiu told me, who else? Excuse me, waisheng, I need to go scream at your jiujiu for several hours I can’t believe how stupid he is why would he do that for me oh my god oh my god oh my god, and Jin Ling has to get him a paper bag to breathe into.

Whenever I read a fic that involves Chief Cultivator Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian warning Jiang Cheng that “you can’t treat the chief cultivator like that” because JC says something sarcastic or pissy or whatever

I’m always very very curious as to what the writer thinks Lan Wangji can do.

Because yes Hanguang-Jun has a stellar reputation but the backing that he had from Xichen is now gone. He can’t not trade with Yunmeng Jiang because there’s no way Lan Qiren or the other elders will allow it (not to mention that now damages relations with Jin which are HUGE), all of society is now looking at Lan Xichen and through him the entire Lan sect with suspicion and mistrust, Jiang Cheng has a reputation that’s even scarier than Wangji’s because yeah LWJ is upright and everything but JC will murder you if you annoy him according to his rep so like… they’re not going to listen to the chief cultivator.

Also does Wangji even know how to get back at him? Does he know how to work the merchants and trade agreements? Because he can’t even figure out how not to piss off every leader within ten seconds of entering a room and if he wasn’t Lan Xichen’s little brother he would have gotten into a lot more fist fights. Like Lan Wangji really just does his own thing, he can’t play nice with a sect leader who technically is above him, I don’t see how he’s going to play nice with a merchant trying to scam him.

Back to the original point, is there literally anyone who’s going to back Lan Wangji attempted an attack Yunmeng Jiang? Like even Wei Wuxian would be like “Babe no :(“ everyone else is either aware of the fact that Jiang Cheng is incredibly powerful, realizes that no being sarcastic to your brother in law is not illegal, or just doesn’t want to piss off the guy in charge of the rivers which probably controls a fuckton of commerce.

Basically all Lan Wangji could do is just… not give him the time of day or ignore him at meetings and considering how Lan Wangji is, he’s probably already doing it because he’s a petty king <3

Please tell me there's at least one fic where Wei Wuxian's return means that Jiang Cheng's golden core starts to glitch and cause problems (wants to return to its original owner) and the only way to deal with it is dual cultivation-___-

Please.

ok so your first problem was assuming mdzs is a story where Good People are Rewarded and Bad People are Punished.

your second problem was assuming that MXTX—who goes out of her way to showcase unresolved, tragic, undeserved endings in all of her works—would ever write a story with such a shallow notion of “deserving.”

the only reason wangxian makes it out unscathed is because they’re literally the protagonists. authorial intent and plot armor ensure their happy ending. that’s it.

tags from @spriteofmushrooms

#baby lqr being taken sooo seriously by wanyin-ge #wcz like 👀👀👀 what fine form he has #jfm SUFFERING AGONIES as he deserves

Late night brain blast but JC gets transported back in time to when his parent’s generation was studying at Cloud Recesses and manages to blow everyone away. JC being the strong confident self he becomes during crisis because come hell or high water he’s getting back to his nephew, thus attracting everyone’s attention and awakening some crushes. Everyone initially assumes he’s from the past and that he’s JFM’s ancestor, which makes JFM feel inadequate as he should, especially with how starstruck his SIC is by him. LQR being the youngest and having the biggest crush on JC because he talks to him like his opinion really matters and doesn’t focus on whatever heroics his elder brother has done this week. I just think it could be fun and full of shenanigans.

Anon, this is absolutely incredible, and I feel like @not-rude-ginger needs to see this ASAP. More to add later when I'm done being raked over the coals by this zcx fic.

you know that scene that introduces us to jiang cheng in present time with jin ling and lan wangji, where we’re kind of lead to think ‘god what a dick’? yeah listen, say whatever you want but he’s actually way calmer and more diplomatic than i ever would be. if i had a kid and a dude made him shut up like that i’d deck him, no hesitation

Look, I love Wei Wuxian and think he had very good reasons for doing the things he did, but I do think if you’re looking at the contrast between how Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng feel about him post-resurrection their very different personalities and moral outlooks account for maybe half of the gulf and the rest is just that Lan Wangji isn’t really one of the people Wei Wuxian fucked over. He hurt his feelings and killed members of his clan, but he’s not the one he flaked on, or left, or broke promises to. Lying to a guy you’re in love with but are not pursuing a relationship with is different from lying to your coworker/roommate/platonic life partner you’re supposed to be doing post genocide reconstruction with. Being mean to your crush is not the same thing as refusing to explain to your little brother what you’re dealing with in terms of physical capability and ongoing trauma and how that relates to why you keep ditching him and your shared responsibilities to daydrink. Xichen and Lan Qiren made it out of Nevernight alive and well. Wei Wuxian (probably) didn’t contribute to Sizhui being orphaned, although if his parents were cultivators I suppose it’s possible that he did kill them during the war. Even if that’s the case, they were not people who Lan Wangji considered part of a family he shared with Wei Wuxian. He doesn’t look at his child and think about what a better life his kid would be leading if he’d had the strength to cut Wei Wuxian off for real.  Even when it comes to things that are superficially equivalent, like Wei Wuxian playing a role in both Lan and Jiang cultivators being possessed and killed, the fact that Wei Wuxian was himself a member of the Jiang clan and they’re being fucked over by someone who used to be one of them is a pretty big contextual difference. Again, this is not me coming for a teenager with PTSD who was doing his best and trying to both look after his family and avert a genocide! I’m just saying that Jiang Cheng has a lot of reasons that Lan Wangji does not to be experiencing some ambivalence on the topic of everybody’s favourite necromancer.

Dying for a fic where Jiang Cheng has a second in command who's the closest friend he has and has been by Jiang Cheng's side since the war, and Wei Wuxian is jealous as fuck-

drawing Them in this particular scene was actually devastating to my emotional well-being :D