Coolnightfire - Untitled

I think a lot of characters in mdzs are written to be foils of wei wuxian, you know, lan wangji, xue yang, jin guangyao, wen chao, jiang cheng, the list could keep going. BUT in contrast to these contrasts, wen ning is wei wuxian's parallel.

They're both a talented child who, under the prejudices of society, become corpses of themselves, yet despite it all are able to persist because of love and understanding. Of course, the corpse thing is more figurative in the case of wei wuxian if we look at him the moments before during and after nightless city. Where he is entirely the yiling patriarch society lauds him to be. Which is just a superficial inauthentic shell of who we know wei ying is. And then he actually dies, so boom, there's your corpse (except 404 corpse not found, my point still stands).

And idk, I think one of the best parts of mdzs is that any of the characters could be the main character. Any of these characters could be the main pov.

But overall, while wei wuxian's foils illuminate his bright sides, his parallels, like wen ning, just make his tragedies that much darker. It's like, wei wuxian, isn't just solely persecuted, this persecution of hope and brightness is an epidemic. And that's so fucked to recognize and so hot of mxtx's brain to deliver as a theme.

We as a fandom need to talk more about how Wei Wuxian changed the Burial Mounds. In the beginning of the story, we are explicitly told this is a place that will kill you dead and leave nothing behind.

"Look at the dark air. Tsk tsk tsk, the hostile energy is strong, isn’t it? And the resentful energy is thick, isn’t it? Even us at the Wen Sect weren’t able to do anything about it. We could only surround it and prevent people from going in. This is still daytime. At night, really any—-thing can be found in there. When a living person goes in here, both the body and the soul, they cannot return, unable to get out for all of eternity." - Wen Chao, Poisons, Chapter 60

But then of course, Wei Wuxian survives it. And then he returns, to this hell of a place that left him broken and bleeding, because he has no other choice, because the cultivation world is determined to kill innocents and they have no where else to go.

And within the three years that followed, he does what even the Wen Sect in their prime wasn't able to, and tames THE FUCKING BURIAL MOUNDS. The Wen Remnants start farming there, for crying out loud.

(I do think some of the taming started during when Wei Wuxian was first there, because they were able to enter the place without too much trouble.)

By the time the siege happens, people could walk in and out of the place, and it no longer carries with it the horror it once did.

Even after the siege, with Wei Wuxian dead, the clans are able to remain there, loot the place, and set up prevention measures against Wei Wuxian potentially coming back.

The various clans set one hundred and twenty stone beasts on top of LuanZang Hill and initiated frequent soul-summoning rituals, followed by heightened vigilance and searches for strange occurrences from all over the world. - Prologue, Chapter 1

And then, during the second siege, we again see the clans easily enter the place and throw around their ridiculous allegations.

MXTX shows that Wei Wuxian is a genius in many ways, of course, but this is one that makes me love him so much - with sheer ingenuity and willpower, he made a home out of a hellscape.

Lan Qiren is not having a good time

Idk what's happening here, But !(☝️) it is very pretty

Inquiry

( Lwj version for @czeriah )

irresistible eyes

When jiujiu refused to take you with him on a night hunt. So cruel and unfair! Jail for jiujiu for one thousand years!!!!

quick wangxian inks bc im trying to draw again lol

while reading the books, i remember wei wuxian’s relationship with jin ling hitting me especially hard. i was crying when the whole stabbing thing happened. but i truly adore what becomes of them and do you know why? because jin ling does something the others could never, something miraculous really––he actually unlearns the prejudice he’s been taught to hold against wei wuxian. he meets wwx, full of disdain, slowly learning about who wwx really is and it has nothing to do with wwx’s outward appearance. and when the truth is revealed, the internal warring for jin ling is plainly portrayed and even if he does give in to a hate intermingled with grief that he has internalised towards this one entity (wei wuxian was never a person in his mind, just the ‘killer’ of his parents, a phantom, before the events of the book happened), you can tell his heart has already turned, that it will keep turning and that’s what happens. you have jin ling, an orphaned child, who hated someone whom his mother loved dearly, because that man caused his parents’ death but it is such a commendable thing that wei wuxian was able to create a space in jin ling’s heart and jin ling was able to accept it. it’s the way both jin ling & jiang cheng blame the death of their parents on wwx but only the former was able to see wei wuxian clearly and actually forge a bond of love with him.

it’s the fact that if ANYONE in this story can actually rightfully hold a grudge against wei wuxian, it’s jin ling, but instead this teenager decides that wei wuxian is much too good and that having him as an uncle is lovely, after all.

Lan Qiren: I knew this day would come. Little A-Ying has grown up and come for the guest lectures

Wei Wuxian: Have we met before, Teacher Lan?

Lan Qiren: Technically yes, although I don't expect you to remember since you were a toddler last time we met. Your mother was my dearest friend, not that there was much competition for the role, and she was always showing off how bright her son was.

Wei Wuxian: Oh....Would you be willing to tell me more about my parents?

Lan Qiren: Perhaps later. Right now I want you to hand over your contraband.

Wei Wuxian: What?

Lan Qiren: Hand over everything you have that is not relevant to today's lessons

Time Passes