I See This A Lot In Fics, Especially Ones That Use Demon Cultivation Versus Ghost Cultivation, But Wei

Maybe it's a good thing that Lan Zhan had minimal rizz back in the day.

One while time compliment from him would've rendered baby Wei Wuxian catatonic.

Lan Zhan: You're so beautiful. Won't you please stop drinking alcohol in Cloud Recesses?

Wei Wuxian: *drops jug in shock*

AU where Meng Shi was just a bit more cynical and spent her hard-earned on buying Meng Yao study materials for the Imperial Examination instead of dodgy cultivation manuals. Cultivation is for his father to teach him, after all.

Meng Yao fucking blitzes the exam, because of course he does, and the first time he arrives at Koi Tower it's with an imperial mandate to audit the shit out of them for tax purposes.

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.

Madam Yu: *Kicking out wwx after the broken engagement thing* AND STAY OUT

Lan Zhan: Finder's keepers

Wei Wuxian: Where did you come from?

Lan Zhan: Gusu

Madam Yu: What do you think you're doing!!?

Lan Zhan: Going back to Gusu

Madam Yu: With my head disciple!?

Lan Zhan: You didn't want him. I do

she knows

Nie Mingjue: *in a tiff* And where were YOU when Huaisang wasn’t in saber practice today?

Meng Yao: *annoyed with Huaisang and Mingjue having the same argument for the 18th time this week and doesn’t wanna get put in the middle* Getting scolded by sword captain for being ‘too pretty to be seen outside your chambers’.

Huaisang: It’s true, Da-Ge, he was being gross again!

Mingjue: You saw it?

Huaisang: Yes.

Mingjue: And you did NOTHING?

Huaisang: Well, I was hiding from saber master, who had A-Yao and Sword Captain in his eyesight at the moment. I couldn’t leave the alcove. I was trapped!

Mingjue: You are both little bastards that need to speak up more often. Both of you go get ready for bed, I’ll be in there to tuck you in soon.

Meng Yao: I’m sleeping in A-Sang’s room?

Huaisang: Yes. Until Da-Ge kills sword captain, at least.

Meng Yao: …what? *didn’t think Mingjue would actually do anything about the man being an ass to him* …what?!?

Huaisang: Yeah. It’s okay, you can come with me to saber practice tomorrow. I’ll comb your hair and you can wear my sleep robes tonight. *pulls him out of the room with their hands together*

Meng Yao: *rewriting his 20 year plan to take over the world to instead be a kept didi by nice Nie brothers* hmm :/

"Why else would Wei Wuxian do what he did for Jiang Cheng if not because of love?"

Jiang Cheng dodged to the side before attacking, “When does not now mean? I’ve had enough of you—get lost right now!” Wei WuXian shouted, “Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu said for me to look after you, for you to be well!”

—Chapt. 59: Poisons, exr

Does Wei Wuxian still care for Jiang Cheng as a friend at this point in time? Yes. Is that friendship the driving force behind his decision-making between the fall of Lotus Pier and his later defection from the Jiang? No. That's why Wei Wuxian can defect with no psychological burden later on in life: he got Jiang Cheng to live and live well. He fulfilled every debt that mattered. Jiang Cheng, unburdened by such a debt to look after Wei Wuxian, in turn places blame on Wei Wuxian:

Under the grief and the fury, Jiang Cheng had lost his mind. He couldn’t control the strength that he used at all. Wei WuXian pulled at his wrist, “Jiang Cheng...” Holding him on the ground, Jiang Cheng continued to roar, “Why did you save Lan WangJi?! Why did you have to speak up?! How many times have I told you not to stir up trouble! Not to strike! Do you really want to play the hero so much?! Have you seen what happened when you played the hero?! Huh?! Are you happy now?! “Lan WangJi and Jin ZiXuan and those people can just die! Just let them die! What’s their deaths got to do with us?! To do with our sect?! Why did this have to happen?! Why?! “Go die, go die, go die! Everyone!!!” ... In his heart, Jiang Cheng knew clearly that back in the cave of the Xuanwu of Slaughter at Dusk-Creek Mountain, even if Wei WuXian hadn’t saved Lan WangJi, the Wen Sect would have found some reason to come over sooner or later. But he had always felt that, if the whole thing with Wei WuXian didn’t happen, maybe it wouldn’t have been so soon, maybe there would’ve been some way to turn things around. It was this torturing thought that filled his heart with hatred and wrath.

Not every conflict or sacrifice in a work of fiction need be motivated by love. At some point you gotta stop chasing ghosts between the lines and simply read the lines.

I'm rereading MDZS and it just hit me that Wei Wuxian's first impression upon meeting Lan Yuan post-resurrection was that he was a "good sprout"

You guys... you guys... that's his little radish... that's his good little sprout....

Rabbits tattoo design