#and that doesn't diminish their relationship! a-yuan having multiple caregivers and guardians is a good thing!

[wenningfanclub]

I love a modern-AU dadfics as much as anyone, but we have to stop glossing over how Wei Wuxian adopting A-Yuan would impact the Wens. Because if he does, something has gone terribly wrong for them and it would absolutely affect everyone involved.

The issue is that A-Yuan has primary caregivers other than Wei Wuxian who should be taking care of him, and if they're not in the picture then there’s going to be a reason why. The first person missing is Granny Wen, who is Wen Yuan’s actual caregiver in mdzs and would most likely be taking care of him. Unfortunately in most dad!xian fics she's immediately fridged or has her grandchild taken away from her due to her age off-screen—which would be deeply traumatic for everyone involved, especially if she’s subsequently unable to be involved in her grandchild's life.

The second person who would be taking care of A-Yuan before Wei Wuxian is Wen Qing. Sometimes the in-fic reason for her not being his caregiver is due to unavoidable circumstances (usually financial issues, which like. yikes), but most of the time it comes down to Wen Qing not really… wanting? to be a caregiver, often because she’s too busy or is putting her career first or is just too much of a GirlBoss. So she chooses to adopt out Wen Yuan to Wei Wuxian (again, off-screen) and that's the end of that.

Listen. Not everyone wants to be a parent. Not everyone should be a parent, or can. It’s a reasonable and valid decision to prioritize other parts of your life over parenthood—especially if being a parent or caregiver wasn’t your choice in the first place. But Wen Qing is going to have SOME kind of feeling about letting A-Yuan be adopted out of her family, and that feeling is probably going to be complicated or bittersweet, if not painful. Not only because she’s, you know, a human being with emotions, but Wen Qing’s primary motivation in the book is to take care of her family and keep them together. So her deciding “nah, I’m too much of a girlboss to be a caregiver, here’s a free kid and I’m going to feel absolutely nothing about this cause it’d be inconvenient for the fluff” is not only a dismissal of how complicated that decision would be for her, it’s also wildly out of character. No matter what the reason is, she's going to feel something about it.

(I’m not getting into how Wen Ning is never tapped as another potential caregiver btw because we're really not ready to talk about ableism just yet)

If you love the idea of Wei Wuxian adopting A-Yuan in your modern au, there’s are a couple of changes that can address this. One is to make Wen Yuan not related to Wen Qing and the shared surname is just a coincidence, like Lan Jingyi. Another is to have them be a blended family where they’re all caregivers for A-Yuan, or have Wei Wuxian be his primary caregiver but help A-Yuan actively maintain a connection to his family of origin. Or have Wei Wuxian adopt A-Yuan but the Wens actually get have feelings about it for once, regardless of why it happens—sorrow, frustration, relief, gratitude, regret, something. Let Wen Qing have complicated feelings and let them shape her relationship with Wei Wuxian, too, for better or worse or just messier. Maybe even let Wei Wuxian, who was also separated from his family of origin and is a walking ball of family trauma, have complicated feelings about it as well! Or go the extra mile and let A-Yuan have some emotions about it for once, because regardless of the context the loss or change of support structures is traumatic, especially for a small human.

Anyway read A Temporary Fix by Bosgood for your complex Wen family feels (feat. Lan Wangji adopting Wen Yuan, because all of this goes the same for him as well).