When Someone Brings Out The Novel Artwork As 'proof' WWXs Og Body Didn't Have Scars All Over His Back

the world of pidw is malfunctioning. wives already wed are not triggering their wife plots, and the story is suffering!

to fix the issue, the system has grabbed the soul of shen yuan to act as wife plot enacter. he must now set in motion the wife plots for every wife who does not stumble onto it by herself, as well as keep the timeline on track.

luo binghe thinks there’s a weird meddling kidnapper with access to aphrodisiac plants who’s jealous of either him, or his harem. he genuinely can’t tell. the man, who he’s never seen but had been described as kind, beautiful and gentle, was either too kindhearted to hurt any of his wives or a malicious spirit. some of the wives even come back with gifts. as apology? enticement? luo binghe doesn’t know. some wives even want to go back, while others ask the emperor for leniency. he’s yet to manage to catch this mysterious man.

the system has applied a special tag to npc shen yuan’s character profile: “protagonist halo’s blindspot”, which allows him to evade every attempt at being discovered by the protagonist while active! it’s really quite helpful.

eventually luo binghe figures out some kind of pattern to the whole thing (airplane had a system) and, disguised as the wife in “danger”, he allows himself to be kindapped and taken to a modest but warm home where he’s shown to “his” room and told to wait by the most beautiful man he’s ever seen. he’s given books and food, and assured no one will bother him until the emperor shows up.

when luo binghe doesn’t show up to save the wife, shen yuan begins feeling bad for keeping her cooped up and starts keeping her company. they talk, play table games, she cooks for him when he proves hopeless in the kitchen. shen yuan feels horrible: where is binghe? this beauty is waiting to be saved, and he’s nowhere to be seen! and she’s so cool, too! very powerful cultivator! why would binghe not want to save her? he’s left the appropriate amount of clues! also, where’s the system?! the damn thing announced it was enacting “final wife plot protocol” and then fucked off!!! shen yuan was so close to freedom!!!!!!!!

and that’s the story of how luo binghe found his empress

Why do so many fanfics have wangxian act so shameless around each other in public and around the kids? Fanfics tend to portray them acting so shamelessly until everyone around them either knows what they're doing in the bedroom or are really tired of them acting like this in public. Is this how they really act in the novel?

I think this may be due to fandom running with this particular scene:

After entering the tavern, they took a seat in an inconspicuous corner, and the waiter came over to greet them. He saw the sword at Lan Wangji’s waist, then the flute at Wei Wuxian’s. Because of their appearance and bearing, he couldn’t help but connect them to the pair who had been the subject of all the most heated talk recently. But after staring at them intently for a while, he noticed that the customer dressed in white was not wearing the Lan Clan’s forehead ribbon. Ultimately, he was left unsure of their identities.

Wei Wuxian asked for liquor while Lan Wangji ordered a few dishes. With one hand propping up his cheek and the other toying with a snow-white forehead ribbon under the table, Wei Wuxian listened to his deep voice as he read off the dishes. A wide grin was plastered on his face.

Once the waiter was gone, he commented, “So many spicy dishes. Can you eat them?”

Lan Wangji picked up the teacup on the table and took a sip. “Sit properly,” he said evenly.

“There’s no tea in there,” Wei Wuxian pointed out.

Lan Wangji filled the cup, then raised it to his lips again. After a while, he repeated,

“…Sit properly.”

"Am I not? It’s not like I’m propping my feet up on the table like I used to,” Wei Wuxian said.

Lan Wangji could no longer bear it. “Even so, do not put them elsewhere.”

Wei Wuxian was confused. “Where did I put them?”

“…”

"Lan-er-gongzi has so many demands. Why don’t you teach me how to sit properly?”

Lan Wangji put down the teacup and cast him a look. He was about to rise in a whirl of sleeves in order to teach him a very proper lesson indeed—but just then, a table at the center of the main hall burst into a chorus of roaring laughter.

Wei Wuxian likes being innocuously dirty towards Lan Wangji. But it's not anywhere near "everyone knows". We also have to remember when it came to xiao-Mianmian she even tells her parents Wei Wuxian was the "bad man" because he was being more openly dirty than Lan Wangji was, despite their little role play being on both ends . Wei Wuxian really likes being seen as the debauched next to Lan Wangji's prim and pretty self in public.

It's why Wei Wuxian jokes about no one being any the wiser that Lan Wangji can be just as much of a pervert and it not seeming to be fair. They fuck with Lan Qiren by purposefully being loud with their bed activity to annoy him and he can't do anything what with them being in their own home and married. And there is Wei Wuxian sitting in Lan Wangji's lap in front of Lan Sizhui (who they are close to so really no need for much proprietary). But the thing here when it comes to them acting as such, is because they are around designated family with those instances.

If they mess around outside of the discerning eye it's not any more radical than any other couple that plays around. There's just a skewed imagining of how couples can and cannot act with it veering into heavy purity politics despite these two acting like any other couple that's not exactly hiding they're a couple. We have the Inn lady in Yunmeng encouraging a one room after they both hesitated about one room or two room question and them HIDING they broke the tub because they had sex.

Fandom likes to think the characters in novel are a lot more discerning of Wangxian's relationship than they actually are. No one in the novel can just tell they have a thing for each other strangers or not. Only ones that encourage them or third wheel are the juniors and Wen Ning. They go on a date night in Yunmeng and it's not something necessarily out of the ordinary or remarked on in the extras (or hell even after the siege and it's Jiang Cheng getting his homophobia bit on and acting like they're being purposely disrespectful despite doing nothing out of the ordinary).

So no, it's an overwrought trope this fandom loves.

This is so sweet and mischievous. Like yes, canon wangxian totally would

wwx: oh, i'm just a frail maiden kidnapped by-

kidnapper: you're a man

yllz, very darkly, very powerful: say one more thing and i'm going to make you eat your own guts

kidnapper, scared: ...yes, sir

wwx: oh, i'm just a frail maiden kidnapped by evil men, how i wish i could be saved by a beautiful strong gentleman,!

wwx: *open one eye waiting*

lwj: *arriving in his full lan glory while his husband claps excitedly*

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

Wei Wuxian using the Wen's attempted public humiliation and subsequent punishment of memorising the Wen rules and reciting them as a way to flirt with Lan Wangji by reciting the Lan rules instead is fucking wild

even if he was objectively guilty of every single crime levelled at him at any point in the narrative, the cumulative influence of jin guangyao's time as a spy for the sunshot forces during the war and his tenure as xiandu is still orders of magnitude more substantive, and positive, than anything else accomplished by any other named character in the text.

even if you believe he did every single foul thing he is accused of doing, he still saved the life of the gusu lan heir and ensured irreplaceable sect knowledge wasn't lost during the razing of the cloud recesses. he still killed literal tyrant and megalomaniac wen ruohan and ended a war. he still pushed through his watchtower program, which saved countless commoners' lives, and rooted out corruption in jinlintai to the point that no jin sect disciple would ever think about accepting a bribe in the city. he is the reason why wangxian get to fuck nasty on every surface of the cloud recesses post-canon--because jin guangyao used his influence to ensure the cloud recesses were rebuilt. he is the one who pulled nie huaisang's hands out of the fire after nie mingjue set all of his precious belongings on fire. he's the one who arranged to have those burn wounds tended to. he still built a temple in his mother's image and interred her body beneath guanyin so that all those prayers would go to meng shi, to grant her a better afterlife. he still gave fairy to jin ling.

even with the least charitable, worst faith interpretation of his character, these things remain true.

Exactly.

To whom it may concern,

Nie Mingjue’s blind spot

That part where Nie Mingjue asks Jin Guangyao something on the lines of ‘are you different than them/ what makes you different’ and then claiming that he himself would never use his privilege for his own benefit is so funny…

Like babe, you are great and have your own trauma to deal with, but you know… you managed to openly attack and injure your sworn brother with zero consequences because you are the privileged legitimate sect-leader, and he is the whoreson grudgingly recognised.

Talk about privilege blindness of the elite… really!!!

Need to see more people talk about Hua Cheng’s intelligence.

He literally learnt a language just by looking and studying it despite having no context for it. He has a near perfect memory and can recall multiple facts in any given area. He runs a gambling house and city and manages all the money. He’s picked up multiple art forms and can recreate Xie Lian perfectly down to his exact robes just from memories he had of him when he was a child. He learnt how to use a saber just through watching Xie Lian once and got so good at it in such a short span of time Xie Lian assumed he was a general and then he won Mt Tonglu. Have I mentioned his memory it’s genuinely scary the other immortals in the series don’t have a memory like his. He reads multiple academic essays and books from multiple kingdoms and time periods implying he’s a polyglot on an insane level. He’s amazing at investigating.

HE BEAT MULTIPLE CIVIL GODS AT DEBATING.

Like just incase you don’t get that, these guys got to heaven for being so smart. They were considered good enough to become a god because of their intelligence and he outsmarted them. He’s so so intelligent like yeah he’s great with a sword but that is Xie Lians thing, he’s only as good as he is because he wants to be Xie Lians equal.

This guy spent his immortality learning literally everything (except calligraphy) and he mastered all of it and sure he is immortal but it’s clear he mastered it in short spans of time. He was carving statues like Michelangelo in under 10 years. Again he learnt to be amazing with a sabre while he was still alive so like 3 years max and mostly from memory. He established a full city with labour, homes, jobs and runs it despite dying as a starving orphan at 17.

HE BEAT MULTIPLE CIVIL GODS AT DEBATING.

I think one of Hua Cheng's favorite ways of teasing his husband is by praying to him

Since Xie Lian gets a hefty following in time, he gets busy trying to help his believers, and that means answering a lot of prayers

And what is Hua Cheng if not his god's most devoted believer?

However, his prayers are rather unique

From "i pray his royal highness the prince of xianle no longer dumpster dives in ghost city because his husband will offer him whatever he needs" to "i pray his royal highness the prince of xianle eats three meals a day and no longer pretends one stale meatbun is a meal when his husband is away", its usually cute, sweet or funny things that Xie Lian finds so adorable to listen to

Until...

"I pray his highness the crown prince of xianle one day awaits his husband after a long day's of work only wearing the red lace robe said husband gifted him some time ago and nothing else beneath..."

(Xie Lian scolds his San Lang about such an indecent thing to pray for bur San Lang just innocently goes "His highness wouldnt abandon his most devoted believer's wish, would he?")

i have a severe disliking for the concept of wei wuxian & jiang cheng reconciliation which honestly, didn’t start out that way. my first reaction to seeing these tags and also stories was that “oh nice, jiang cheng growth will be shown post-canon” because for me this reconciliation is only possible in the scope of a redemption story. and yes, jiang cheng’s redemption specifically. but much to my surprise, alot of these conceptualisations put the weight of reunion and reconciliation squarely on wei wuxian’s shoulders and that feels fundamentally wrong somehow, when i know that it wasn’t wei wuxian’s outlook that needed changing but jiang cheng’s.

sometimes, it is so funny how my experience with mo dao zu shi keenly parallels my experience with the my hero academia fandom. for anyone in the know and for anyone who would relate, jiang cheng & bakugo katsuki are so hilariously alike–especially in the way the fandoms treat these characters and how the fandoms place the weight of mending things on the wronged main characters. (and if i allow myself to get even more meta–even the tag wars are so alike i feel myself going through deja vu these days lol)

listen, i get the appeal of creating fanon explanations for unsavoury actions of characters we like and i know that some things can be enjoyed in a varied manner but there’s a way to make a canonical asshole more likable that doesn’t handwave away their wrongs or create justifications out of thin air for them or–and this one actually grates on my nerves–recontextualise things so the person they wronged somehow “deserved it” and it is: taking accountability and atoning and having that introspection and awareness, through whatever journey of growth, that yeah i fucked up and now i need to unfuck things if possible. but now that i have dipped my toes into stories of reconciliation and found myself a bit, uh, repulsed, by how wei wuxian had to make more efforts (or even equal efforts), it has permanently soured me on the concept. which is a bit of a shame.