it's been a thousand years and people are still arguing about jiang cheng torturing demonic cultivators. listen, real or not real doesn't even fucking matter

if jiang cheng had a torture dungeon you know who would have loved it? wei wuxian

when you fail so hard to convince your brother to come home (you both cried btw) that it somehow turns into agreeing to put on a show to make everyone else think he defected (you won't be able to support/protect him any longer) and you literally have to take the deepest breath possible to steady yourself as you leave him to this hell he is trying to turn into a new home (without you!!!!) to go prepare for the fake fight:

wei wuxian scolding jiang cheng in the burial mounds about not remembering what the wen siblings did for them vs jiang cheng earlier on standing up for him in front of all the sect leaders saying "you all might not know this but the person wei wuxian saved and his sister helped us a lot during the war" and getting promptly shut down by nie mingjue (the wen clan that massacred lotus pier? is literally what he says, out loud, to everyone)

edit: now with visual aids !!!!

the nice thing about the juniors learning how to read jin ling (despite the scowls and the prickly attitude) is that, by virtue of him being exactly like his uncle, the juniors probably start learning how to read jiang cheng as well

it's very important to me that wei wuxian comes back in a slightly shorter body because it restores the natural balance: jiang cheng, younger sibling, is now taller than him.

jiang cheng white hair streak is such a given to me

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

i know wei wuxian is first pick as god/personification of death etc. etc. (duh, perfect choice, so sexy) but i would like to propose jiang cheng for the part. in the same way elizabeth swann is death from that one post about her kisses damning the men she loves

in the way everything he touches and everything he loves seems to be doomed (sect, parents, sister, brother)

wei wuxian as life!!! as god of life!!! coming back, unkillable. life giving (core transfer, wen ning, etc.)*

jin ling doesn't die because at the end of the story, at the guanyin temple, wei wuxian is there too. to protect him the same way he protected jiang cheng

and this is why he (wei wuxian) has to go back to being yunmeng jiang's head disciple, in this essay i will—

*i'm not saying he lives well, but he lives! he fucking claws and crawls and fights his way out of the burial mounds, he just doesn't fucking quit** you know what i mean

**until he does, but that's a choice he makes.

this has probably been said before but the thing about jin ling flinching when jiang cheng raises his hand isn’t that Jiang Cheng Is Evil and jin ling has realized he Should Be Afraid Of Him, but that jin ling was literally just threatened, taken hostage, choked, etc. by someone he thought would never harm him. his other uncle who raised him !! of course his brain would sound the alarm at a sudden threat, it’s instinct. him immediately going back to poking and prodding and needling jiang cheng shows that he knows he has nothing to fear

sometimes you can spot lan wangji looking at lan qiren the same exact way jin ling looks at jiang cheng and it makes me 🤕😭🤕

something that gets me about the 'in our next life let's still be brothers' scene is the delivery. it's this very specific tone of voice, the one you use when you're saying something you've already repeated a thousand times before. wei wuxian is almost careless with it, not because it isn't important, but because they've been here before. they've had this conversation before. he has said those words before.

dear lord is this legal?

wei wuxian literally gave jiang cheng his plot armor

jiang cheng is the way he is because he is a hugger at heart and unfortunately every single person he could hug died pretty much all at the same time

jiang cheng saying “zewu-jun who is this famous and talented cultivator? will you introduce him to me” when wei wuxian shows up with the lan sect at koi tower is the equivalent of telling your classmate you’re going to tell on them, slowly raising your hand, and then very innocently asking the teacher if you can go to the bathroom

au where wei wuxian comes back only to find out the backlash from the seal’s destruction killed jiang cheng