Lan Wangji - Blog Posts
🐰兔年大吉!🐰
Wish everyone good health, good fortune and all the happiness!
the untamed + text posts
Lan Wangji + When Wei Wuxian is not looking at him
❤️❤️❤️
Ok, so here’s the thing: Lan Wangji does not love Wei Wuxian to the exclusion of his morality.
What I mean by this is that Lan Wangji does not love Wei Wuxian, and it is only incidental that Wei Wuxian is also a good person. Lan Wangji loves Wei Wuxian because he is a good person, someone whose morality matches his own, a like soul, if you will. Lan Wangji choosing to stick with, support, and protect Wei Wuxian in his second life isn’t simply because he doesn’t want to lose wwx a second time, but because he wholly believes that wwx is in the right and there is no need to second-guess him (unlike in wwx’s first life where lwj was torn between clan expectations and wholeheartedly supporting wwx). These things are inherently intertwined in wangxian’s love narrative, to the point where it is actually out of character to suggest that Lan Wangji would come to care about someone he did not believe was righteous, let alone someone with confirmed dubious morality. Because Lan Wangji is also a morally upright character, and that is not a trait of his that he is willing to compromise for love.
Will I ever be bothered to post things properly? Maybe.. But not today, Satan!!
SO BASICALLY.. I had a huge hyperfixation on Hlvrai a few years back, which slowly went over to Mdzs.. So I did the only logical thing. Not gonna include the old one cuz it's really bad 😭. But yeah, that was my vision.
So the thing I have with mdzs is that I absolutely love wangxian (They are my bby boys and I love them dearly) butttt I rlly hate the miscommunication trope ngl. So I've spent the past 4 books yelling in my head "noooo, Wei wuxian he loves you!!!!" And I have I feeling that the same things gonna happen when I get book 5. Sigh I love you wangxian but yall need to get your feelings together!!!!
I’ve had Wangxian on the mind lately
"Mn, they look good." What would wwx only be without lwj?
Mo Dao Su Shi’s anime is over. Such a rollercoaster of emotions.
Here’s some of my favourite characters and dynamics from MDZS, along with some extra TGCF doodles because I’m still waiting for the fucking book to be published /lh
I’m watching the Untamed because I’m too lazy to read the book anymore
I’m sorry, some of the graphics are just so silly
what if
(TW: angst and serious stuff implied at the end 0: )
wwx was never brought into lotus pier and was instead brought in by wen ruohan and was forced to use his powers for evil. However because we all know how wwx is, he never really listens. So that leads him to be beat everyday, kind of like in canon..? He doesn’t mind it though, he’d rather himself get hurt than innocent civilians. He’s a strong guy, right? One day he finally snaps when he realizes this sect is actually very evil, so he steals old scrolls from the clan and teaches himself a new form of cultivation, demonic cultivation. Something that even wen dogs haven’t dared to touch since.. you know who. Not even wen ruohan would’ve needed to do this since he had wwx defending him. In the end he has his emo era, ends up with found family and is overly skittish of how they’ll treat him due to him being used as a weapon in the past.
we could also go another route where wen ruohan is overly nice to wwx. Always doting on him, making sure he’s fed properly, keeping him away from dogs, etc.. so this leads wc to be very jealous. So wc tries to mess up daily things in wwx’s life, bullies him, locks him away etc. One day he goes too far and throws him into the burial mounds while off on a night hunt and runs home to their “father” crying about how wwx is dead, wwx betrayed them, wwx ran off with that Lan Wangji.. this enrages wen ruohan so much it makes him let his anger out on wwx’s closest friend, wen ning. He kills him and dumps him off in the burial mounds, muttering about how “unfair this was” and how he had to “go to such drastic measures.” After sensing he wasn’t really alone in this place, wwx locates the spiritual energy he felt and found it was wn. He of course runs to the city after this and studies different types of magic, but nothing seems to work. That’s when he remembers those old scrolls he used to sneak, the forbidden technique. He has to save his best friend, he has to. So one day he teaches himself demonic cultivation in order to resurrect his lifelong friend, however.. he isn’t the same. He’s cold, not personality wise. Personality wise he’s very.. distant. That’s okay, at least he’s alive.
But word comes out that wwx taught himself demonic cultivation after being seen with the fierce corpse, so the righteous clans wanna come teach him a lesson. Meanwhile three people, two known to follow rules, don’t think this should be done. Those three being Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang. They go against their sect’s wishes and get wwx out of there. They take him to lotus pier and that’s where he meets genuine love and care. It’s a different type of love coming from Madam Yu and Uncle Jiang, a type of love that’s given by parents. Not what was given to him by.. never mind.
And why was jc so willing to help? He was happy.
I might write more later :3
In wwx defense (I don't do that a lot but imma play devil's advocate for a sec) jfm didn't love him for who he was, he loved him for who his parents were, if he were some random kid jfm would have left him on the street to freeze, that's gotta mess with your head. Jyl and jc loved him for who he was, and when he thought he lost that he went searching for someone who would. He's just a guy who wants unconditional love, would he get that from jc if they sat down and talked about their feelings for once? Yeah, but they're both fucked up from their childhood, so wwx replaced that with lwj. Not saying it's a good nice thing and he's done terrible stuff in his life, but I can understand wanting someone to just love you for you, not who they think you should be. Anyways thanks for the jc defense and support you always give, he gets way too much hate in this fandom I'll never understand it
omg I am definitely not saying WWX had it good with the Jiangs, they fucked up all three kids! and the appeal of a relationship like his with LWJ is very clear for his particular personality and traumas-- I just think it's really interesting that so much is left unresolved in favor of that relationship in a way that doesn't feel sustainable
like there are some/many romances where the resolution of the central relationship is the symbolic resolution of both partners' major traumas/issues/questions/whatever, and thus other threads can be left unresolved by the narrative in explicit terms because they've been symbolically resolved by the resolution of the protagonists' emotional journey. but that doesn't feel like the case in MDZS at all!
'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?”
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.
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
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.
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.
House of Gentians Arc 2 || Pages 97-102
WWX thinks that LWJ wants to bind his hands after all but LWJ has another plans lol hehehe WWX doesn't know the meaning of the ribbon, cause LWJ never gave it to him even during their wedding but it seems like he still understands this noble act of LWJ tying not only WWX's but his own hand too, as if saying that he is together with him in all.
But for LWJ? He just demonstrates them all what he already said before but they didn't seem to understand - WEI WUXIAN AND HIM ARE MARRIED!!!
NEXT PART
PREVIOUS PART
ABOUT+TABLE OF CONTENTS
