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ceale · 2 years

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@macavitykitsune

Me: I think in this hypothetical scenario, Character A would do X and Character B would do Y.

You: how very dare you say X is better than Y, my poor little meow meowww, this is a grave insult towards EVERYONE in the ENTIRE WORLD who does Y! We live in a society! You're a heartless ghoul!!!

You're projecting a ton of your own baggage and reading a whole lot of things I never said into my two-sentence ask. You've set up a nice strawman and are valiantly whacking away at it, but you're wildly, WILDLY off the mark. That wasn't how I read the text at all. And while it was really interesting to read xiyao-feel's analysis of wangxian and their feelings re:each other, I can't say the same for your uncalled-for aggro rant, targeted at an opponent you made up in your own head, in response to something no one even asked you about.

Don't reply to me again. Thanks.

☕ If WWX died, LWJ would grieve for the rest of his life and never date again. If LWJ died, WWX would grieve for a couple months/years and move on with someone else.

This is a really interesting question, and I've been thinking about it on and off since I got it. I think I disagree, but possibly not for the reasons you'd expect.

First, though, I do want to disclaim that while obviously I'm going to try and ground this textually, I'm much less familiar with the (non-xiyao-relevant) wang//xian parts than I am with the xiyao-relevant stuff (which granted does include a bunch of wangxian stuff), and in general I've spent much less time thinking about wang//xian.

Okay, with that out of the way...

So, first of all, I definitely agree that LWJ would grieve for the rest of his life and never date again. (Insert standard bitter xiyao rant about how in wangxian this tends to be viewed as romantic whereas obviously what LXC needs to do is move on, right? But I digress.) It's consistent with his canon actions after WWX's death, it's consistent with the parallels to Lan An and his partner and with Mama and Papa Lan, it's consistent with everything we know about his interest in WWX historically, it's consistent with.... basically everything. No argument here.

Looking at the second part, though, I think there's two questions. First, would WWX move on at all? And second: would WWX move on with someone else?

At this point—for the first question, I honestly, honestly don't know. I really don't. On the one hand he didn't cope great with JYL's death! On the other hand the circumstances there were rather extreme, and honestly, while he clearly still cares about people from his previous life, and still grieves for JYL, in the present timeline he does mostly seem to have moved on. In general he's a moving on kind of guy? It's part of who he is; it's part of why the (Wang//xian) happy ending that we get actually works as a happy ending for them, despite, narratively speaking, kind of requiring the complete destruction of his previous life.

On the other hand the idea that he would move on like that *really* doesn't fit with the kind of story this is. And then there's this:

He thought about it some more. Wen Ning didn’t know where he was going, but he didn’t know either, did he? In the beginning, when he was with Lan WangJi, he never thought about this problem at all. He took it as granted that they’d continue like this without change. But after tonight, maybe he and Lan WangJi wouldn’t go back to how they were ever again. Without Lan WangJi, it seemed as if it wasn’t too impossible for him to roam the world on his own.

But a voice in Wei WuXian’s heart told him with clarity, No, you can’t.

The words he said back on Koi Tower really proved to be true. The current Wei WuXian couldn’t do without Lan WangJi.

(ER, ch 97)

This definitely suggests that he couldn't at least move on easily. It could also definitely be read as suggesting he can't move on at all…on the other hand, "the present WWX" could be contrasted with a hypothetical future WWX, and not just the WWX from before. (This is one of those times when I really wish I could read Chinese.)

So I'm really not sure. (Though I do think it would definitely take longer than a couple of months if he did.)

But let's look at the second question. Consider the case where he does move on. Would he move on *with someone else*?

I really don't think so, because I think it would be really hard to find someone else who WWX would actually be interested in having a relationship with.

We see him interested in LWJ from the very beginning. I don't think he's in love with LWJ in his first life, but he's absolutely interested in him. He continually teases LWJ and pokes at him and tries to get a reaction. We see him call out to LWJ when LWJ is looking at him and the other students after LQR's first lesson (ch 14), teases him wildly in the library over the course of multiple days (ch 15), teases him on the hunt they all go on to Biling Lake (ch 16, 17), teases him coming back from Caiyi Town with wine (ch 18), teases him in the Cold Springs (ch 18), teases him with the rabbits (ch 18), remembers him after on a hot day at Lotus Pier (ch 125), is drawn to him and teases him again despite failing to recognize him at first at the archery contest (ch 45), is drawn to him during their time as Wen hostages (ch 51-55), teases him at the Phoenix Mountain Hunt (ch 69) and when LWJ is at Lotus Pier (unbeknownst to WWX presumably to visit him) (ch 71). He enjoys spending time with him, I think the meal in ch 74 is a good reference here. We just don't see him react this way to anyone else! And while it's kind of funny to imagine he has a dozen such relationships and the one with LWJ is just the one we're looking at in the flashbacks, I don't think that's actually textually supported.

We might ask, why is he drawn to LWJ like this? And this isn't a full theory of WWX's initial attraction to LWJ and it's not meant to be, but I do think he likes getting a rise out of someone with LWJ's personality; he appreciates LWJ's competence; and he appreciates LWJ's beauty.

He repeatedly comments on LWJ's good looks (as does the narrative, lol). I'm not going to quote them all but this passage cracks me up (ER, ch 14):

Before this, Wei WuXian never had the chance to carefully examine the front of his face. Now that he had a look at it, he started to think random thoughts, He looks quite nice indeed. Yet, if only those girls could come and see him with their own eyes. Looking as bitter as if everyone had offended him or his parents died, it wouldn’t matter no matter how nice his face looks.

(ER, ch 14)

See also ch 13 ('Wei WuXian emphasized, “Very pretty.”'), ch 14 ("After a thought, he realized that Lan WangJi did look pretty"), ch 17 ('Wei WuXian smugly tossed the toquat in his hand, and suddenly pointed at him, “Sisters, do you think that he looks handsome?”'), ch 45 ("Along with that overly-pretty face of Lan WangJi’s, now that they met again, Wei WuXian’s eyes had momentarily been blinded by his looks"), 65 ("He was so beautiful that it seemed unreal. Caught by the moment, Wei WuXian was somehow entranced"), ch 92 ('Wei WuXian laughed, “I can’t compare to him. He’s much more handsome than I am."'), ch 125 ('Wei WuXian thought about it for a moment, “Maybe just a bit more handsome than me.”'), and many more.

His interest in and appreciation of LWJ's competence is likewise well-established—see ch 13 (“Lan Zhan’s skills were quite good.”), ch 38 ('Wei WuXian touched his chin, “Hmm. He’s good. Of course. He’s really good. He’s the best.” As he talked, he couldn’t help but break into a smile.'), ch 48 ("Hearing Nie MingJue praise Lan WangJi’s level of cultivation, Wei WuXian felt a strange surge of happiness"), ch 109 ("Wei WuXian gaped in astonishment. He’d long since known that Lan WangJi had shocking arm strength, but this… was a bit too shocking!"), ch 115 (*"HanGuang-Jun, your moves are pretty fast, huh?*"), ch 122 (“That’s why I said you were incredible. The couple of times from over a decade ago were the only instances when I fought you with the YunmengJiang Sect’s swordplay, weren’t they? Recalling them after listening for such a short while—isn’t that incredible?”), and many more.

As to his desire to make LWJ react, again this isn't a comprehensive survey and isn't meant to be, but see ch 15 ('Satisfaction was plastered all over Wei WuXian’s face, “Good thing that I helped him achieve this ‘first’. You all saw it, didn’t you? The self-restraint and etiquette that Second Young Master Lan was praised so strongly for were all weak and useless against me.”'), ch 55 ("Wei WuXian, *Absolutely nothing works on him. He’s not at all as interesting as how he was a few days ago, face as dark as the bottom of a pan, speaking with actual tone, even biting others when he was mad. But one shouldn’t hope to see such a Lan Zhan so easily. I probably wouldn’t be able to see it again until the end of my life.*"), ch 115 ('Wei WuXian was immediately overjoyed, speaking on purpose, “Could it be that when Lan Er-gege was young, he didn’t pay attention to reading and writing because I was the only thing he could think about?”'), ch 122 ("As he spoke, he pushed the candle toward Lan WangJi, wanting to see if his earlobes were red."), and many others, plus I think it's clearly part of their sex life.

Now again this isn't a complete theory of Wangxian, but even limiting ourselves to these three traits—LWJ is unusual in any one of them! It's genuinely hard to find someone has LWJ's type of personality (but who reacts so beautifully to WWX), or someone who's as competent as he is, or someone who's as beautiful as he is, never mind all these three traits in one person.

On top of this, however, while this is part of why he's attracted to LWJ, I think part of the reason he *actually falls for* LWJ is that LWJ always has his back. This is less amenable to long-list-of-obvious-quoting than the earlier points, but consider these three excerpts:

Fleeing Carp Tower after confronting JGY goes sideways (ER, ch 50):

After the “mnn”, he added, “I am here.”

Hearing the words, something that Wei WuXian had never felt before sprouted within his heart. It was like sorrow. His chest hurt a bit, but also felt a bit warm.

He could still remember how, back in Jiangling, Lan WangJi came all the way to assist him, yet he didn’t appreciate the kindness at all. With all kinds of disputes, the two of them often parted with disapproval.

But what he hadn’t expected was that when everyone feared him and flattered him, Lan WangJi scolded him right in his face; when everyone spurned him and loathed him, Lan WangJi stood by his side.

Letting himself fall from a tree when they're going around Lotus Pier (ER, ch 87):

All of a sudden, an abnormally strong impulse surged into Wei WuXian’s mind.

He wanted to fall down again, just like back then.

A voice inside of him said, If he catches me, I’ll…

At this point where he thought ‘I’ll’, Wei WuXian let go. Seeing that he fell out of the tree without any warning, Lan WangJi’s eyes immediately widened. He shot forward just in time to catch Wei WuXian, or one might say, be caught by Wei WuXian.

[...]

He wasn’t scared of falling. All these years, he’d fallen many times. But falling on the ground still hurt, after all. If someone was there to catch him, it’d be more than wonderful.

And crucially this moment after LXC has explained that LWJ is in love with WWX (ER, ch 99):

At first, he did those shameful, theatrical things in order to make Lan WangJi feel disgust and throw him out of the Cloud Recesses so that they wouldn’t meet each other again, going their separate ways. Lan WangJi wouldn’t have failed to see what his real attitude was. But even when this was the case… he still chose to keep him by his side, refusing to give Jiang Cheng the chance to approach and make things difficult for him. He answered all questions, granted all requests, indulged him and forgave him again and again. Even when faced with Wei WuXian’s myriad of almost cruel teasing, he was still able to hold himself from crossing the line.

Again, while I'm certainly not saying this is the only reason, I do think it's fairly clear that part of why WWX falls for LWJ is that LWJ will always, always, have his back, always, always, be "on his side", no matter what.

And like, this makes sense! It's quite romantic, and I think this is in part a reaction to having lost basically everyone else, including especially Jiang Cheng/his place in the Jiang.* But the problem here is... how can I put this... even in his day-to-day life WWX is fairly unrestrained, and then sometimes he does things like run off and fight to save the Wen. The latter is admirable, and the former can at least sometimes be charming, but it's not really consistent with being committed to other responsibilities. Even the former can cause some difficulties—think of how he blows off JC about fighting with Jin Zixuan and such, for example, or how he goes about the Phoenix Mountain Hunt, and as to the latter... JC didn't expel him from the Jiang clan and fake a fight with him for fun, you know? He had the entire rest of the Jiang clan he's responsible for. It's not that he doesn't love WWX, and deeply, but he's not willing to put WWX over the rest of his clan. (I realize the Wen are also involved here but just focusing on WWX for now.) But LWJ is willing to put WWX over his clan! Absolutely willing! As LXC's speech reveals! He's willing to back up WWX through everything. And this is true in big ways but it's also true in small ways—ignoring the way he's treating LWJ's bunnies (ch 65), helping him steal lotus pods that belong to someone else (ch 90), basically saying it doesn't matter if WWX abides by the rules (ch 114), feeding him soup he loves at the banquet instead of the Lan stuff (ch 115), backing him up when he lies to some kids about how counting works (ch 126).

I realize this description might make it seem kind of unbalanced, but I'm focusing on what WWX gets out of the relationship here, not what LWJ does. (And he clearly does get a lot out of it!) But even so "be on my side no matter what" is a pretty tall order if you're someone who has other responsibilities—and pretty much everyone in this setting does, either to their superior or as a superior to their subordinates. (LWJ does too, it's just that LWJ mostly has responsibilities that he can carry out while going around with WWX, and they both know that if it comes down to it he'd pick WWX over those responsibilities.) And it's especially a tall order when the person who needs that is, frankly, a chaos gremlin with a very individual sense of morality who'd ended up with an alliance of clans devoted to taking him down before…and who could at least theoretically end up in that same kind of trouble again.

So: would WWX move on? I don't know. But would he move on with someone else? I really doubt it, because LWJ is compatible with him in specific ways that would be enormously difficult to find again.

* I recognize he does still have WN but a) WN does actually have the higher priority of LSZ and b) he pretty clearly doesn't think of WN in this way

#unhinged

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