Empty Chairs, Empty Tables

i think one of the most wonderful traits of wei wuxian is how socially competent he is, which is why it always annoys me if he is mischaracterized as someone who is unaware about how those around him feel, just because of the way his relationship with lan wangji pans out in the books. the dynamic between them was extremely multifaceted and what seemed obvious to us was very rightfully NOT obvious to wei wuxian and he hardly had time to sort those feelings out, given the kind of harrowing ordeals he was going through. but that aside–the way wei wuxian’s “social competence” manifests isn’t just social courage–in that, the risk of embarassment or self-consciousness doesn’t stop his self expression–or just his general forwardness and social butterfly tendencies but also–and imo, most importantly–his perceptiveness and astute reading of people around him which comes from a deep understanding of the human social element, at the individual and the societal level.

he has full awareness of how his station is looked down upon in the cultivation world and so while others in his situation may bend or break–wei wuxian cleverly toes the line between the two until taking a stance becomes necessary. he deeply understands the ugly dynamics running within the jiang family and clan and acts accordingly–be it his prompt efforts to placate jiang cheng or his conscious silence when madame yu is in a mood or even his acceptance of the whipping in lieu of restoring stability for the clan. despite his personal biases against jin zixuan, he can recognise his bravery. even his scandalous move to begin undressing in the cave shows that he knows exactly what would make lan wangji tick.

hell, i’d say even his initial thought about how the resentment of the dead can be redirected towards a target shows his striking comprehension of how emotions work in general. what’s more, he’s able to recognise the machinations nie huaisang had employed and he was also aware of the bigger picture associated with how fickle and easily swayed mob mentality was when everyone took part in bashing jin guangyao when certain truths came to light. when he was first brought back to life, he quickly and correctly deduced what kind of life mo xuanyu must have led and how he could act in order to easily humiliate the mo family. he empathised with jin ling and yet realised how he was brought up left something to be desired and so, tried to inculcate some of his own highly regarded values to him.

the deft manner in which he handled the juniors speaks for itself–a good teacher will always have good communication skills and wei wuxian went above and beyond just “good”. his people skills on nighthunts are extremely helpful–his ability to make tongues loose simply by charming people is highlighted more than once. just off the top of my head–him politely appealing to jin guangshan about the wen remnants and apologising for “intruding”, him readily handing in his sword at the indoctrination camps, him suggesting to jiang cheng that he should leave the clan once he was at the burial mounds–all of this (and much much more) demonstrates wei wuxian’s competence at guaging complex social dynamics, which is why, when he goes against the current and stands firm, it is a deliberate, well thought out decision, one made after considering the risks and repercussions, and that makes wei wuxian’s stance at the end that much more powerful. he is not stumbling his way through life, is not unheeding of his social status, is not a “mad genius with poor social skills”. hell, i would say wei wuxian’s ability to see straight through people is more impressive than even his insane intellect and to reduce that aspect of him feels like a disservice to his character. because when it comes down to it, the fact of the matter is that the murky social world through wei wuxian’s lens is actually astonishingly clear.

I find it kind of stupid how 'half full' vs 'half empty' is framed as an optimist/pessimist thing. If it starts full and gets halfway drained, it's half empty. If it starts empty and gets halfway filled, it's half full. If you don't know the starting state it's both simultaneously.

I was thinking about the bodies of supremes.

Hua Cheng has perfect skins. Xie Lian was able to find no faults with his appearance, which was relevant to proving his ghosthood because at the very least typically ghosts aren't able to perfectly recreate the amount of hair on a normal human head or the insides of a body, because they need to be able to visualize it and typically a person can't visualize the full components of a person's insides or just how much hair is on a human scalp.

I assumed and I think others do too, that Hua Cheng is purely so perfect because he's a supreme.

But Xie Lian hasn't ever inspected He Xuan well enough to know how perfect his skin is, and his Ming Yi skin was imperfect and had unusually pale hands, though Xie Lian did not clock that as suspicious at the time he noticed.

Meanwhile Hua Cheng has a full, perfect head of hair, he can eat and drink and breathe, and he has a heartbeat.

Hua Cheng was part of the nursing staff during the Xianle face disease plague. And he for sure has photographic memory; outside of the butterflies, he is and had been able to perfectly recall full conversations from when he was only 10 and recite them back to an oblivious Xie Lian, and perfectly recreate Xie Lian's every outfit down to the finest details to the point Mu Qing finds it disturbing.

I wonder if his skins are so perfect not because he's a supreme, but because his photographic memory and anatomical, medicinal knowledge from his time as a human has allowed him to create the skins with such perfect accuracy.

I feel like that'd be nice if that were the case. Like proof that the little things he tried as a human were not worthless and did help him become who he did. Proof he was always special, and not just in the cursed way he thought.

role reversal + body swap + time travel bingqiu au:

binghe reverses time to the moment he and shen (yuan) qingqiu met. figures out the whole not-shen-jiu business, but that's less important and mind boggling than the fact that he's somehow ended up in shizun's body.

(under any other circumstances, he would be overjoyed. now, though— well. it's just not optimal shizun wooing conditions. still will take advantage, just. give him a moment.)

he goes to find himself (he has a hunch) and finds shen yuan literally moments after transmigration, helps him up, and takes him to the bamboo house.

luo (yuan) binghe looks up at shen (binghe) qingqiu and faints. that's as far as luo binghe gets in his master plan of fixing their relationship, because by then the system has wisened up to what binghe's trying to do, and it's come seeking death (trying to get binghe to be cruel to shizun via ooc lock).

this is as far as i've gotten with this idea, but. do you. do you see the vision

Dragonji apprehends Crowxian for his crow crimes 😤 His punishment is joining Dragonji’s hoard of suspiciously acquired possessions 🤔

This is a sequel to my previous Crowxian drawing :3

i will always love and appreciate the irony and parallel of how in the first siege, the cultivators mass-attacked the burial mounds and destroyed everything, using wei wuxian’s cave to hide the aftermath of their brutality and in the second siege, it is exactly that cave which shelters the cultivators and infact, saves them from the fate they had once dished upon the wens without thought or mercy. it is how the place they had collectively condemned and looked down upon is precisely the place that keeps them alive when their circumstances finally turn on them. it’s the way that it is the home that had once occupied wei wuxian–the enemy of the cultivation world–that becomes their salvation in the end.

also, i don’t completely remember this but the array that protects them was missing bits that lan qiren helps remake and the thought that the reason the array was broken in the first place was because it was barged into by the cultivators during the first siege, whilst the remaining wens were inside it, a last ditch effort to save themselves, breaks my fucking heart. because the cultivators of the second siege were saved by the very tools that wei wuxian CREATED to help and protect and secure the wen remnants, the very people that these cultivators and their predecessors killed in cold blood.

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.

My favorite part of Lan Wangji's character arc is the way he goes from wanting not to be seen for who he is, even if it is lonely, to being determined to show everyone who he is and daring them to judge him.

This poor fifteen year old boy, totally overwhelmed with romantic thoughts about another man, while everyone he knew informed him that this person would never be accepted in his life. This eighteen to nineteen year old, plagued with the need to keep his affections a secret. The twenty year old who turned away from it due to the opinions of his uncle and elder brother.

The twenty two year old who lost the love of his life and faced punishment from his clan for daring to love someone they disapproved of... then went back and told them he didn't care: "This child of the Yiling Patriarch is now mine, thanks. I don't care if you punish me, I'm done cutting off the people I love for your sake."

Turned into a thirty five year old who shackled this man to himself for everyone to see. He became a person who refused to waver in his commitment to stand by them, despite the consequences. Ultimately, he told those same family members that if they had a problem with his spouse, he didn't have to be their family anymore.

He became strong enough to support his spouse through experiencing the judgment of a 'family' member who refused to accept him.

And through this journey, he found the security of self that allowed him to love freely and take chances. Self-acceptance allowed him to build the life he wanted--to share the safety he built for himself with the people he valued the most.

Headcanon that WWX used the song Wangxian as a lullaby for himself and a-Yuan in the burial mounds. He associates it with the safety, security, and serenity that he associates with LWJ even if he doesn’t remember that’s why. He associates it with his head being cradled in LWJ’s lap, his hands carding through WWX’s hair as he takes care of him when he’s suffering the fever from the infection. He associates it with being held and cared for.

So, when he’s thrown into the burial mounds by Wen Chao, he hums that song to himself a lot when he’s feeling scared and like he needs some comfort. (Which is a lot bc he’s in the Burial Mounds where everything is trying to kill him.) Even after he escapes the Burial Mounds, he hums and sings it to himself for self soothing. A little something to keep the voices of the dead from driving him insane and remind him of how to be human.

He plays it when trying to calm spirits and fierce corpses if the other songs don’t work or he just wants to use this one instead. He pours his heart and soul and humanity into playing it so it may remind the dead just as it does him of that comfort and safety it holds in its notes. The love it offers brings him back from the edge of madness many times, so he holds the song close to his heart for when he needs it.

It is only natural then, that when a-Yuan asks him for a lullaby that he plays that one. Whether it’s notes ring out of Chengqing or fall softly from his lips, he gives this melody to the boy in hopes it will bring the same comfort it does him.

So, of course, when he’s newly resurrected, this is the song he plays to calm Wen Ning. It is a song he has long associated with calming erratic emotions, safety, security, love, and, perhaps most importantly, reminding one of their humanity.