#wei wuxian has died so many times in his life times. this was one of them

[rhymaes]

The Untamed (2019) // “Marengo,” Mary Oliver

[antebunny]

find me in the future

After so many reincarnations and reunions, Wei Wuxian’s soul is so attuned to Lan Zhan’s soul that all it takes for Wei Wuxian to remember his past lives is making eye contact with Lan Zhan. He never remembers a life before the first one where he met Lan Zhan, which is probably for the best. You have to start somewhere. 

Of course, as the centuries fly by and Wei Wuxian collects reincarnations like Pokemon cards (fantastic new invention, he’s finally born in the right century!), it takes longer and longer for him to recalibrate to centuries of memories getting dumped into his previously innocent nine-year-old brain. (Always nine years old. Can’t ever get away). 

This is Wei Wuxian’s excuse for why he doesn’t immediately run to Lan Zhan after making eye contact with him on a crowded street. Well, one of many excuses. There’s also the part where he’s a tiny little nine-year-old orphan (again?!) tossed between the bodies of many, many stampeding adults, all attempting to reach for Lan Zhan. He’s above them, of course; Lan Zhan cultivated to immortality so long ago that now he doesn’t walk, he glides, or floats, or flies. The result is the same: the god-like light-bearing lord appearing before his people, who fall over themselves (and Wei Wuxian) in their eagerness to be blessed by his presence. 

By the time Wei Wuxian struggles to the front of the crowd, Lan Zhan is long gone. 

Okay, so here’s his problem: Wei Wuxian is not immortal. Mo Xuanyu’s body, if it ever possessed the potential to cultivate to immortality (doubtful), had that potential beaten out long before Wei Wuxian came to own it. Unfortunately, back then, he and Lan Zhan, still young and naive (ha, funny what perspective time gives you), truly believed that with enough effort he could succeed where so many had failed. 

Instead, Lan Zhan was forced to watch as his beloved withered, wrinkled and finally grew still while he remained as pristinely young adult as ever. To make matters worse, Jiang Cheng also cultivated to immortality, proving that Wei Wuxian’s original golden core had that capability. The ensuing guilt from both of them–Jiang Cheng for having Wei Wuxian’s core, Lan Zhan for encouraging Wei Wuxian to cultivate to immortality with him–and loneliness as the only two immortals of their generation brought the two of them together, which Wei Wuxian still thinks is kind of cute. They’re like frenemies now, who know how to work with each other instinctively and will defend each other to the death (or a death–no, bad Wei Wuxian, not funny) but still hate each other’s guts. 

Over the centuries Wei Wuxian has been reborn as just about every type of person. Some lived entire lives without ever even hearing of Lan Zhan. Some never learned to write, much less cultivated a golden core, some were widely beloved, some were scorned, and some found their way back to Lan Zhan.

If Wei Wuxian is being completely honest–and he’d never share this brutal honesty with any of his loved ones–those lives are the worst. Inevitably, Wei Wuxian’s new body lacks the capability to cultivate to immortality, and his loved ones who have are all forced to watch for the thousandth time as Wei Wuxian sputters and stalls until his body inevitably gives out and he dies. Old age, Wei Wuxian has come to learn through vast unwanted experience, is an unlucky way to go. No, better to go out in a blaze of glory, for a cause or for a people. The death is temporary and he will be remembered by people who love him. Making his loved ones watch his slow demise when he knows that he will never reach immortality in this lifetime is nothing short of torture.  

Perhaps that’s why it is such a surprise when little nine-year-old Wei Wuxian (Zhang Xinyin, or William Zhang, in this lifetime, he’s Chinese again but he speaks Cantonese now for a total of twelve languages, nice) hunkers down in a quiet little corner of the orphanage and discovers that this body has the highest potential to cultivate to immortality of any body he’s ever had, including his original. 

The practice of cultivation fell out of use many, many centuries ago. Wei Wuxian is on his own for this one. The good news is that he’s an expert at forming a golden core at this point, perhaps more than anyone else in the world. So all Wei Wuxian has to do is find a stable way of life for the next decade or so, which supports a child practicing an esoteric art like his life depends on it, and then he can worry about finding his family.

That is, of course, easier said than done. 

“Will! Hey, Will!” 

Wei Wuxian startles out of meditation (if only Lan Zhan could see him now) when he hears one of his new friends calling his name (well, one of many). He had spread a blue rubber yoga mat out on the green concrete rooftop, hoping to find some peace and quiet wherein he could meditate and nurse that slowly-budding golden core in his chest. 

Freckles, or Ruddy, or Rush, or Chen, pokes his little cherub-like face over the roof edge. (Everyone Wei Wuxian’s age–biological age–looks like a little baby child to him, and everyone in the world seems impossibly young. It helps that he likes kids, and they tend to like him). 

“What troubles you?” Wei Wuxian calls as he stands up.

So the last time he learned English it was quite different, okay? Sue him. He’s relearning it. 

“You’re so weird,” Chen informs him as he picks his way between cracks and loose sand and dust. “Were you meditating again?”

“Yes.” Wei Wuxian pounds a fist to his chest twice. “I will be stronger than anyone. You will see.”

Chen only rolls his eyes. “Okay, Bruce Lee. Anyways. Lynch is asking for you.”

A very nice white lady who is unfortunately named Ms. Lynch came to volunteer at their school to teach. Wei Wuxian likes her, and to his surprise he likes the woman who runs the orphanage too. He’s had a bad run with orphanages in the past but this one is okay. No funding, of course, and understaffed, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t need adult supervision. (Somewhere on a different continent, Jiang Cheng sneezes loudly). 

“Yeah? Whatever for?” Wei Wuxian follows Chen down the ladder and misses Chen rolling his eyes again.

“Dunno, go find out.” 

Wei Wuxian takes a few shortcuts on his way through the school building. He goes to public school, of course, as do all the kids from the orphanage, but Wei Wuxian is their star. A shining example of what orphans can be if they apply themselves. The kids all think he’s weird, which is fair, because he is, but the (other) adults think that Wei Wuxian is a studious little goody-two shoes. The truth is that Wei Wuxian has learned how to solve problems discreetly and how to cause trouble without getting caught. And that he’s only well-adjusted in the sense that he’s had dozens of childhoods; one more isn’t going to mess him up too terribly. 

Ms. Lynch is poking around her computer (absolutely amazing new invention, Wei Wuxian was definitely reborn in the right century) when Wei Wuxian skids to a stop by her desk. 

“Hello, Ms. Lynch.” Wei Wuxian beams in a way that he knows she loves. “Chen said you were asking for me?”

Ms. Lynch closes out of a few tabs and turns in her swivel chair (another great new invention), brushing straw brown hair behind thick plastic glasses. “Yes, I heard that you have been trying to learn cultivation all by yourself, can I ask what sparked your interest?”

Wei Wuxian shrugs. “It seemed interesting.” He really wants to become immortal this lifetime in order to save people who he cares about deeply a lot of grief. “It’s fun.” 

“I see.” Ms. Lynch clearly isn’t satisfied with this answer, but she nods and smiles all the same. “You know, I wrote about the ancient practices of cultivation for my senior thesis, and it’s quite dangerous to do without supervision. Have you considered joining a class?”

“Uh.” Well, actually, Wei Wuxian could teach that class better than probably anyone else in the world, except maybe for Jiang Yanli, but it’s irrelevant because he certainly doesn’t have the money to afford it. “Noooo?”

“Hm.” Ms. Lynch smiles again, in a gently disapproving kind of way. “Well, I know that they can be expensive and quite a hassle, but I just wanted to make sure that you aren’t taking anything you learn from the internet about it too seriously. A lot of it is misleading and you can really harm yourself.”

Wei Wuxian is fighting for his life on the Wikipedia pages for cultivation. First, because he’d hoped that leaving some kind of coded message there could catch the attention of someone in his family and lead to them finding him. When that didn’t work, Wei Wuxian started combating misinformation (a losing battle) while having the reputation of that Wikipedia editor who put random gibberish in for fun. 

“Oh, I’m not,” Wei Wuxian chirps. “It’s all for fun, Ms. Lynch. I promise I’m not doing anything dangerous.”

“Okay, I believe you,” Ms. Lynch says, mostly sincerely. “I don’t mean to discourage you. It’s wonderful to see you taking an interest. Most kids your age have no interest in stuff like that.”

What she means is that cultivation is the ancestral practice and cultural heritage of his people. Because Wei Wuxian was born into the right social group: there are maybe a couple hundred thousand of his people spread across the globe, in little diaspora communities with varying levels of wider acceptance. Wei Wuxian’s family–the ones who have cultivated to immortality–are their leaders. Mysterious, reclusive figures who almost never interact with outsiders yet are beloved within their communities for how steadfastly they’ve protected them over the centuries. A lot of people outside the community think they’re a cult, which is probably fair, all things considered. 

It’s funny. Wei Wuxian has never been closer and yet never felt further from his family than this lifetime. A real chance of cultivating to immortality, a place in the only group of people with access to the famed (or rumored) immortals, and his reputation has never been better; his people celebrate his birthday every year (or they celebrate the excuse to party, same difference) and pray for his reincarnation. Yet if he–William Zhang–claimed to be the legendary Wei Wuxian’s reincarnation, no one would believe him. They’d ignore him as a loud-mouthed kid, at best. At worst, well, Wei Wuxian isn’t going to test that. In no situation would they–the community leaders–reach out to the immortals on his word. 

Instead, Wei Wuxian slinks back to the bedroom he shares with Chen and two other boys (he doesn’t miss being a girl, but damn could they keep a room clean) and wonders if Sizhui has gotten Lan Zhan an iPhone yet.

Maybe it’s for the best, Wei Wuxian tells himself. Reuniting with his family while in the body of a child will be awkward. Especially with Lan Zhan, who has been attracted to Wei Wuxian in whatever body they reunited in but is obviously not attracted to children. Wei Wuxian is not looking forward to spending years lusting after his own damn husband while Lan Zhan can only see a child. Yes, it’s definitely for the best.

Even if Wei Wuxian is terribly lonely. 

So the years pass. Wei Wuxian cultivates a golden core, gobbles up modern slang like he was born for it, learns how to code in Python, and enters high school with an end goal: immortality by age twenty-four. The current record-holder is Wen Qing, who cultivated to immortality at the ripe old age of twenty-five, the lucky bastard. She reincarnated in the 1500s into the perfect set of circumstances: a second-eldest son of a wealthy family who practiced cultivation. Her family patriarch was one of the community elders who semi-regularly communicated with the immortal cultivators. The year when Wen Qing was brought along for the first time, Wen Ning took one look at her and said “jiejie” and that was that.

Obviously, Wei Wuxian has to beat her record. 

Some of them choose to forget.

Over the centuries Wei Wuxian and the others have encountered countless reincarnations of people they knew from their original lives. (And important people from future lives too, but those were never quite the same. There’s something about their original lives that always sang like an unfinished symphony, an epic story not yet fully written, even though Wei Wuxian lived a full life). Sometimes the choice is made for them not to help them remember. Such was the case for a reincarnation of Jin Guangyao, found in 556 B.C. by Wen Ning and Sizhui. Sometimes they choose to move on, like the reincarnation of Jiang Fengmian found by Jiang Yanli. They leave him alone nowadays, whenever they find him. His soul is not so attuned to anyone else’s as to have the strike of realization that hit Wei Wuxian on that crowded street. 

The worst is when they reunite, live happily, and still choose to say goodbye. Nie Huaisang reincarnated in Italy, dragged Wei Wuxian off to France to learn Impressionist painting, and still chose to reenter the reincarnation cycle. Wei Wuxian, whose body that decade could not even form a golden core, simply could not understand Nie Huaisang’s unwillingness to cultivate to immortality. He still doesn’t. 

Humans have orbited the moon. For that alone, it is worth it. He only wishes all humans could feel how far they’ve come.   

Even those that chose to become immortal have retreated from the world. So many lifetimes, so many childhoods, so many parents and lovers and children–it’s impossible to care equally forever. The world feels so much larger when you have been an Egyptian farmer during the reign of Cleopatra, to whom the pyramids were ancient history, and one of the slaves who built them, and a Finnish soldier who fought on skis against invading Russians in 1939. In the face of such grandness, how can one tiny community, one family, one person matter?

It’s a blessing and a curse. Wei Wuxian has had good parents and bad parents and everything in between until he finally figured out how it works. He’s grown up in enough families with pet dogs that he’s lost his fear of them. On the other hand, he has had so many friends in so very many forms that he struggles to convince himself they truly matter. They’ll all be dead within the century, anyways. 

Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng have the opposite problem. They only have one life, the original, to remember, even as that life’s length stretches far past the boundaries of a normal human lifespan. Their main link to the world, Wei Wuxian knows, is him. Sizhui and Jin Ling drag them out for enrichment exercises, and Jiang Yanli can usually get her way if she sets her mind to it, but it’s still guilt over Wei Wuxian’s second life as Mo Xuanyu that keeps them here. 

The 21st century slams in, a rush of technicolor and lightspeed and skyscrapers (and like all centuries, war, disease and death). The tale of the Yiling Patriarch vastly outstrips the size and weight of Yiling. The Burial Mounds are a nice forest now. Hundreds of thousands of people hope for his return. And still Wei Wuxian cannot manage a single immortality-sized golden core. 

The opportunity sneaks up on Wei Wuxian. Shamefully, he needs the obvious spelled out before he can see it. 

“You going to the cultivation tournament?” 

Wei Wuxian was actually studying calculus. Seriously, it’s crazy how much people have proven about math since the last time he–wait, cultivation?

When Wei Wuxian digs his nose out of his textbook, Ian is smirking at him, and Chen is blinking innocently. Ian slouches over the library table so he can push the textbook shut.

“Eh, probably not worth it,” Wei Wuxian dismisses. He’s not learning cultivation so he can dunk on some kids who only learning cultivating without the cultivation. 

“You sure?” Chen butts in, now smirking too. “I hear winner gets to meet the immortals.”

Ian grins when Wei Wuxian’s mouth falls open. The kid has no idea what’s going on with “the immortals” or cultivation–he’s pretty sure that Ian thinks he and Chen are deep in a religious cult with weird beliefs but normal holidays–but Ian  gleefully abuses the effect it has on Wei Wuxian.

“Sounds made up,” Wei Wuxian says suspiciously.

“No, no, it’s true!” Chen insists. “They hold it every twenty-five years. Or they say they will. They haven’t done this before.” 

It’s very hard to get very old immortals to do something new. What changed? 

The answer smacks Wei Wuxian in the face as Chen pulls out his phone and shows an official-looking announcement, shared around their community, to Wei Wuxian. It’s the internet. Previously, Wei Wuxian lived entire lives without ever hearing of cultivation. Now, anyone with an internet connection will probably run into the term at least once. Now, Wei Wuxian’s family can reach out, through screens and cables and the casual interest of millions, to him.

They’re doing this for him.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t read Wikipedia articles. Lan Zhan regresses into a fugue state whenever Wei Wuxian’s not around. Maybe Wen Qing had the idea, maybe Sizhui put it together. Because they’re still reaching out, still waiting for Wei Wuxian to come home. 

This is his chance. 

[pakhnokh]

Wei Wuxian not knowing about the Lan Forehead Ribbon in "House of Gentians"

What LWJ says in this part is the HoG-verse assumption regarding WWX not knowing the meaning of the forehead ribbon. The idea/opinion is mine, it's how I see it based on my reading, so it might not be true! But this is the setting for HoG nonetheless.

Please take into consideration that this is me explaining the technical behind the scenes of my thought process to make these pages. I base my work on the novel and what is written there only. This is not me trying to explain the novel, but only what I, as a creator of an AU, thought that I can use for it to work.

So please, read till the end and if you have your own insights to share, do it!

So what is the explanation for Wei Wuxian not knowing the meaning of the ribbon and finding it out in canon? We have 2 versions.

Novel version (also Manhua and audio drama): WWX doesn’t know the meaning of the forehead ribbon, and the cause is unknown. He learns about it from the Lan juniors in his second life.

Donghua version: The source of information about the ribbon is the Lan rule book, and WWX copied that part wrong. Only in his second life, when he flipped through LWJ’s notes, he found the mistake and the correct meaning written by LWJ.

I believe donghua had its own reasons to bend the plot this way (especially since censorship laws would forbid presenting the meaning of the ribbon so straightforwardly fearing the possibility of hinting on wangxian relationship, so showing it as one second shot of a notebook with tons of text was a good choice on their part to both deal with the censorship and still maintain the main idea).

HoG-verse follows the novel, therefore it does not assume that WWX knew, or could know the meaning of the ribbon from the Lan rules. We don’t even know if it’s IN the Lan rules. According to the novel, WWX had to copy about four fifths of the entire Lan rule book, see here:

And we do know that WWX remembered quite a lot of the rules, as he says to Jin Ling in the temple:

(In fact WWX is shown as someone with good memory, especially of things he read. He excels in his class in CR showing that he knows a lot of stuff compared to his classmates, he remembered phrases he read once from Wen Mao’s book,and he remembers the Lan rules he copied many times).

I also don’t think he has “selective memory” cause the only times WWX was shown as forgetting something (as far as I recall) is the times he was feverish (Tulu Xuanwu cave, forgetting the song the LWJ played to him) and devastated/not caring about what’s going on around him (after the massacre on Nightless City, after his Shijie died, didn’t remember LWJ saving him and confessing to him).

In both cases, he eventually remembers. He remembers by himself the song LWJ played in the end of the novel, and about the events of Nightless City, when LXC tells him about what happened, he admits that his memory is clouded:

Meaning he eventually recalls the things he forgot. This is opposed to his reaction when he finds out about the Lan ribbon from the Lan juniors. It’s really something he hears for the first time. If WWX really copied this from the rule book and forgot, he should’ve remembered it at this point, but he’s too surprised, excited and embarrassed.

PLUS, if WWX had copied the meaning of the forehead ribbon from the Lan rule book, I don’t think he would forget it. He always thought the Lans to be strict, boring and uptight, so such a “juicy” piece of information would by no means go unnoticed by him. He’d use this info to tease the hell out of young LWJ hahaha…notice how he is surprised that the Lans could have a romantic side:

ANYWAYS this is just to show that the donghua version isn’t exactly possible in novel-verse.

In fact, in the novel, WWX does know only one meaning of the forehead ribbon, or maybe its purpose:

Maybe THIS was what he read in the Lan Rule book, but it’s still not as in the donghua, where he eventually came to know that the ribbon is supposed to be given to one’s fated other. If this knowledge about the ribbon being a tool for self-regulation was what he learned from the Lan book, then he is still left in the dark because he suspects there is another meaning to the ribbon and he just doesn’t know it:

According to these parts, it doesn’t seem that WWX knew and forgot, but that he really didn’t know the whole story behind the ribbon. Again, his reaction is very strong:

Again, this is different from him realizing that his memory was clouded after the events of Nightless City. This is REALLY something he NEVER knew. Anyways back to the conversation with the juniors, where WWX finds the truth, LSZ tells that:

Apparently this meaning of the ribbon is something that was passed down the generations. We don’t know if it was passed down by script or orally, or both, but it is something that has turned into a custom for the Lans.

And since it is a major custom in such a major sect such as theirs, I believe that it was known among other sects too.

There’s the opinion that this meaning of the forehead ribbon was known to Lans only, but I personally don’t think so, because the Lans themselves had no problem of telling about it to outsiders.

Recall the text I added before where JL says to WWX that he learned its meaning:

And also, LSZ and LJY have no problem revealing it to WWX, who they still think is Mo Xuanyu at this point.

Also, in his first life, back on Phoenix Mountain, it seems that LXC was willing to tell WWX the meaning:

(ok this is personally my head canon but I think that LWJ stopped LXC from revealing the meaning of the ribbon because he kinda lowkey wanted WWX to continue touching/asking to touch it, and was afraid that by learning what the ribbon means, WWX would feel ashamed and stop. I mean, if I was LWJ and my crush would constantly touch or ask to touch the object that is supposed to be given to my fated other I’D DEVELOP HOPES AND THINK WHAT IF THIS IS FATE??? And eventually I’d want it to become true. :’) )

Anyways back to the matter at hand, the Lans seem to have no problem telling others what’s the meaning of the ribbon is. I also don’t think that taking one’s ribbon off has an immediate sexual association. IT CAN HAVE, AND IT IS, but it’s not the main idea of it, in my opinion. It’s an object that’s supposed to be given only to the other’s beloved no matter in which situation. Meaning, that the moment they are together, or wed, the moment they know they love each other, then it gives the fated person the validity to touch the ribbon. If it had a solely sexual association then I guess this scene wouldn’t happen:

LWJ enters a wine shop without his forehead ribbon, and WWX plays with it. You can say that this is them acting SUPERRRR shamelessly, but I really believe there’s nothing so scandalizing about it. LWJ feels comfortable giving him the ribbon because they are finally together. WWX accepted his feelings, and therefore, LWJ can take it off and give it to him, and (correct me if I’m wrong) nowhere is it mentioned that it’s something that’s supposed to be done only at the couple’s private chambers.

(That’s also why I felt confident enough to have LWJ remove his ribbon and tie it on WWX in front of everyone at the inn, even though it DID have a strong meaning of letting go of self regulation, but in my eyes this was possible also because WWX is his beloved one, even though his feelings aren’t returned yet.)

ANYWAYS it seems that the Lans have no problem telling about the meaning to outsiders, because (in my eyes) there’s really nothing TOO sensitive about the fact that the meaning of the ribbon is that you can give it only to your loved one. I don’t think it’s THAT grave to be kept a secret from the world. On the contrary, in a world such as theirs, which is built on honor and respect to customs and traditions, I guess it’s important for others to know about such a custom, if only so that they’d know not to touch the ribbon accidentally or on purpose, to avoid offending the Lan member. (I don’t know if it’s true but in my eyes the Lans make this ceremony of giving their ribbon to their loved one on their wedding hehehe so yeah, I do imagine that if outsiders attended a Lan wedding, they’d see this custom happening).

And as I believe happened in all periods of our real world, that there were books and records written about history, cultures and traditions of peoples, the same exists in MDZS verse. I believe that there would exist books and records about the history and customs of different sects, and I think that it's not impossible that the meaning of the Lan forehead ribbon is also mentioned briefly somewhere in a book about the Lan Clan/Sect, or elsewhere.

And this finally brings me to this page of HoG that LWJ asks Wei Wuxian this question. WWX wants to know the meaning of the ribbon for the first time, after so many times of touching or wanting to touch it.

I think that younger LWJ didn’t even KNOW that WWX doesn’t know the meaning of the ribbon. Hell, in his eyes it could have been just another malicious prank done by this shameless boy who has no respect. Maybe only later did LWJ realize that WWX really didn’t know the meaning.

Hearing WWX’s question finally being asked, LWJ isn’t ready to answer him yet. He gave him the ribbon, yes, but it was something he did as a statement to his Shishu and others. As I mentioned before, he didn’t give WWX his ribbon during their wedding, nor after it. Because he knows that WWX doesn’t return his feelings and that this marriage isn’t really out of love.

That’s why he isn’t willing to answer his question right away. Instead, he just teases WWX by answering with a question of his own. And since WWX brought their past, with how he touched his ribbon and was rejected, LWJ also brings his perspective on the past - like, how could you do all that, and not even know what’s the meaning of what you do?

LWJ was a student with WWX in cloud recesses and heard how he answered all questions correctly and fast. WWX was outstanding compared to his classmates, showing that he did some reading. LOL as I was making this there was this picture of WWX’s room running on twitter, and I really loved that private library/study corner he had there with tons of books.

It was clear that WWX did read about the cultivation world, including random sects’ history, traditions etc. This is where I’m sure that such a book would exist about the Lan Sect too.

And LWJ asks him if he didn’t read anything about the Lans as he was reading about all other sects. What’s the answer to that? In HoG-verse, I guess WWX missed this information somehow. He really didn’t know the meaning of the ribbon from any source, and he still doesn’t know.

BUT HE’S GONNA FIND OUT I PROMISE HEHEHE SO….there you have it! This is HoG’s version of dealing with the forehead ribbon matter, where WWX stayed alive and dared raise the question before HGJ himself.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT NOTE

I need to clarify one more thing, guys. This isn't me stating an idea about the novel, this is me sharing my thought process in order to make my AU work. Let me explain:

Even if the info about the Lan ribbon is written in the rule book, I couldn't be sure about that because it isn't specified in a clear manner. The only certain source for that is the donghua, which, as I'm sure you can understand, I can't use since it made many changes to the original story. I couldn't be sure if the info about the ribbon in the Lan rule book is a canon possibility or a donghua way of dealing with the plot. So, I DO NOT OPPOSE the idea that the info is in the Lan rule book! But I just needed clear evidence to work with.

LWJ was not about to answer WWX's question in that instant. He wanted to ask him back - just how come he didn't know?

So imagine me having to think about the text (and believe me I put a lot of thinking hahaha), I couldn't make LWJ say "Didn't you copy it in the rules? How could you miss it?" because again, I couldn't be 100% sure it WAS in fact canon that it's written in the rules.

So I made the decision to make him require about WWX's studious character which does 2 things:

based on my assumption that some knowledge about the Lan ribbon was available to the public because it seems to me that the Lans themselves are surprised that WWX doesn't know. imagine that this is like others know not to offer alcohol to the Lans so to not offend them. I'm sure that some basic knowledge about the ribbon was available to the public too, again, from courtesy reasons.

LWJ asking WWX this is my way of making it show that his character DID notice and DOES acknowledge WWX's intelligence. their studying in Gusu days was a chaos of LWJ avoiding WWX or giving him the cold shoulder. >This< LWJ however takes that unfortunate past experience and by this slight sarcastic reply shows WWX that he in fact noticed and appreciated WWX's smart and studious character.

So once again I stress out the fact that this is me creating this idea (which can be untrue!) out of technical reasons to make not only the AU in general work, but also THIS SPECIFIC moment of LWJ answering WWX without telling him the meaning.

[fiftysevenacademics]

I thought the transition between the part where Wei Wuxian, freshly minted necromancer, is torturing Wen Chao and then suddenly the next chapter, post-resurrection Wei Wuxian is dreaming in Lan Wangji's bed at Cloud Recesses while recovering from Jin Ling's stab wound seemed abrupt until this:

"...Don't...don't be mad..."

Lan Wangji was slightly taken aback. In a gentle voice he replied, "I am not."

"...Oh," Wei Wuxian murmured. He seemed to be reassured by hearing that and loosened his grip.

Lan Wangji sat down by Wei Wuxian's side. When Wei Wuxian had stilled once more, he made to get up but was stopped by Wei Wuxian grabbing hold of him once again.

Wei Wuxian clung to his arm and pleaded urgently,"I'll return with you. Hurry up and take me back home with you."

And that totally devastated me.

Because what had just happened in the previous chapter was Wei Wuxian yelling:

"Lan Wangji! Must you come at me like this right now? You want me to go to Cloud Recesses and be confined by the Lan Clan as punishment? Who do you think you are? What do you think the Lan Clan is?! Do you really think I won't fight back?"

The thing that completely guts me about this story is the regret. The characters, most especially Wei Wuxian, embark on courses of action and make choices that seem right at the time. But though we're in control of our own actions and choices, we have no control over their consequences, and only for the very lucky few do things go exactly according to plan.

A well-lived life will inevitably be filled with regrets for most of us and as we climb higher and higher on the pile of choices we've made over time, we can look down on and see so many other routes we could have taken.

How can one be happy under the weight of accumulated regret?

Wei Wuxian has more to regret than most, and in his fever dream, he's probably back in that old moment, begging Lan Wangji's forgiveness and grabbing the lifeline he's throwing out. Perhaps if he had returned to Cloud Recesses, told Lan Wangji the truth about his golden core, and given up his demonic cultivation, things wouldn't have turned out the way they did.

That moment had been a turning point in his life, but he hadn't realized it at the time.

Now, it looks like Lan Wangji is saving him anyway, like his fate is always somehow in his hands, but Wei Wuxian is just beginning to understand this, after so many people have died, his family has rejected him, and he's died and returned in someone else's body. The dream shows that he recognizes he's being given a second chance and this time, he doesn't want to screw it up. But he will always have to live with the regret, and learn how to achieve some measure of happiness around it.

[oh-dameron]

Wei Wuxian dies. Lan Wangji mourns. Years pass. Trouble returns to the jianghu.

Wei Wuxian wakes up covered in blood, in a familiar array. It's Nie Huaisang's fault.

Lan Wangji finds him. They save the day. They marry and live happily. That's the end of the story, until:

Wei Wuxian dies in a night hunting accident. It was a trivial matter, easily dealt with until it very abruptly wasn't. Certainly no great battle worthy of song or fitting to end the Yiling Patriarch's second life.

Lan Wangji mourns. The grief is different this time; he's not wracked with might-have-beens and should-haves. Instead, one moment he held the whole world in his arms, the next it was torn away from him. It's shattering, how unfamiliar this pain feels when he once would have called himself accustomed to loss.

Years pass. Trouble returns to the jianghu.

The Unclean Realm is under seige, and Nie Huaisang genuinely does not know what to do. He's a strategist, certainly, but even in his youth he was never a warrior. He's been outmanouvered today, and it's long years since he could fling himself into his elder brothers' arms and wail for help.

Zewu-jun has not stirred from his mountain in a long, long time. No; instead Huaisang is left with the exceedingly cold comfort offered by Hanguanjun. The Second Jade of Lan might be frozen in the bloom of youth, but time and grief have left a flawless diamond shell around the hollow of a man. The light that lit him from the inside died with Wei Wuxian. He's where the chaos is, as ever, but if he has any ideas about how to remedy their situation he's been characteristically close-lipped about them. Huaisang is resigned to the notion that Lan Wangji might be in Qinghe more for the possibility of finding his own end than any pressing desire to help.

Well. If Hanguanjun is determined to sacrifice himself then Huaisang is determined that it's going to be in the service of saving as many Nie lives as possible. There are innocents here: disciples too young to have earned spiritual weapons, children too young to even be called disciples, healers and teachers, servants and cooks, the elderly and, and. And noncombatants, like Huaisang himself, whom nobody could rightly call innocent. There's nothing to be done to save him. That would take a miricle.

His grandchildren are here, beautiful and clever and strong. The eldest isn't a child any more, grown from a wonderfully curious toddler into a endlessly curious adult seemingly overnight, but grown or not Huaisang will see all of them out of this mess. If nothing else, Huaisang will knock them out himself, tie them to Hangaunjun and boot them out the back door while he distracts their enemies. Preferably not by sallying forth and dying pathetically. As soon as he comes up with a better idea he'll demote that one to plan B.

His study is as he left it: painting supplies and books sadly gathering dust in the corner, set aside yet again for duty and drudgrery. There is new correspondence to see to; perhaps it will bring good news. Probably not.

The door to one of the cabinets is ajar. It's an ancient, tacky thing that he keeps largely because Da-ge favoured it, and it has a tendancy to swing open unless the latch is set just so. He certainly didn't leave it that way: he hasn't survived this long in the jianghu by being careless, merely acting the part, and he always wanto to know when the contents of this particular cache are disturbed. Locks are an obvious indicator that the contents are interesting or valuable in some way, and if someone circumvented the lock to the room already, well. What could be interesting about a cupboard full of boring administrative papers in a room full of nothing else?

He nudges the door the rest of the way open, peers inside, and his heart immediately lodges in his throat. In amongst Da-ge's journals from the Sunshot campaign, the bundles of correspondence from Jin Guanyao, heavily-encoded notes on his plans for revenge written in the form of truly atrocious juvenile poetry, something is missing. A manifesto, a copy he made from the notes of a long-dead demonic cultivator, who in turn made his own copy from the notes of the Yiling Patriarch himself, seized by the Jin sect after the first seige of the Burial Mounds.

Almost nobody knows about that book and what it contains. Almost nobody has access to his study. Almost. Nie Huaisang drops his fan and sprints across the Unclean Realm to the inner family quarters. Disciples flutter as he passes, unaccustomed to seeing their elderly zongzhu stir himself beyond a saunter. An empyrean figure in white joins his wake like the trail of a comet, ghosting silently after his gasping dash.

Huaisang pauses before the door and sends a silent plea to the heavens, to his ancestors, to Da-ge and anyone who is listening that he's wrong or not too late. He pushes into the room and his knees give out, strong hands arresting his fall before he can hit the ground sobbing. There's blood, in lines and characters, the tang of resentful energy in the air, and the body laid out in the centre of it all isn't his grandchild any more.

Wei Wuxian wakes up covered in blood, in a familiar array. It's Nie Huaisang's fault.

Lan Wangji finds him.

[khattikeri]

the thing about wei wuxian’s victims is that calling them wei wuxian’s victims in the first place is nebulous.

that isn't to say those who died or were bereaved after nightless city or the first siege of the burial mounds weren't hurt by wei wuxian’s retaliation. but calling them "wei wuxian’s victims" while ignoring that cultivation society scapegoated and hunted him down, and that wei wuxian never attacked without being threatened first, is a massive oversimplification.

sure we have minor characters like the cultivator who lost his leg or the cultivator who lost his parents, and sure mxtx writes them as part of a mob of more unreasonable people who were largely not even present for these events, but the thing is... there are major named characters who were present, or who had loved ones there, and their grief and pain are given full attention by the story. they're called jiang cheng and jin ling.

my sister/my mother died at nightless city because of you! except no, jiang yanli actually died because an entirely different nameless cultivator stabbed her, and she intentionally pushed wei wuxian out of the way to protect him out of sincere love. it wasn't the first time. she already demonstrated this when she stood up for him and called him her blood brother in front of her fiance and his family at an event they were hosting, when she had zero backing support and could've easily been dumped and had her marriageability ruined for speaking out of turn.

who's to say that jiang yanli's death wasn't the only instance of cultivators dying at nightless city from friendly fire during all the chaos? we don't know. the one thing we do know for certain is that once it was all over, the survivors attributed the (dubiously counted) thousands of casualties to wei wuxian alone.

saying that wei wuxian was the sole cause is overly convenient for cultivation society. in particular the major sects politically did not want to help the wen remnants and were content to mistreat them in forced labor camps. they thought that wei wuxian was too dangerous with his unique ghost path of cultivation and use of resentful energy, so they gathered everyone up and tried TWO different times to assassinate him. the first time just killing wei wuxian alone. the next time, taking all the remaining wens out with him.

there's a lot left unsaid about these major battles and sieges which leads to a lot of our discourse as fans to begin with-- we have such limited information about all these major events of the past! and unfortunately for us, that's the point!

that's the thesis of the book! the details of the pain and grief you go through don't actually matter! regardless of it, you have to eventually move on. you have to actively choose good, to do what you think is right for the sake of doing the right thing, and not just to act based on your idea of fulfilling debts or deserving to be repaid a certain way!

what everyone claims as indisputable facts about wei wuxian are actually skewed not only by rumors, but by politics. mxtx doesn't depict these various randos to give them a brief beat of sympathy. nor does she do it just to make wei wuxian look better.

they are there because they are also angry and bitter, stewing in the past looking for someone to keep blaming (wei wuxian; the cultivation world decided thirteen years ago it would be wei wuxian) and demanding recompense from him. jiang cheng does the same for the entire damn book.

jin ling breaks the cycle; in spite of the rocky start he eventually chooses to trust wei wuxian and argue on his behalf even in front of his elders. even though he's the heir to a major sect. even though he has been taught his entire life to despise and be angry at wei wuxian for orphaning him.

mdzs is a complex story. it also happens to be a black and white story without gray morality. there are many what-ifs, actions that went poorly or circumstances that would've shifted the course of events if only things had gone well for everyone, but nobody acts in a legitimately morally grey way.

throughout the novels there is a clear delineation between good and bad, righteous and wrong; wei wuxian is clearly the former in both cases not because mxtx wanted to more easily depict her protagonist as a good guy, but because she consistently bases these dichotomies upon the fulcrum of hypocrisy.

supporting the use of resentful energy via ghost cultivation to kill your political enemies in wartime and then immediately turning on the person doing so for you once the war is over, blaming all evils on him and trying to get him killed because he's trying to help the few survivors of the opposing side (both because it's the right thing to do and to pay back a life debt he secretly owes that only two or three people know about, oops)-- that is hypocrisy.

if wei wuxian does it and we like it, it's expected of him and he deserves no praise, though he handles it all with charm and stride befitting the son of the illustrious cangse-sanren.

if wei wuxian does it and we don't like it, he's a murderous evildoer, the ungrateful and dangerous son of a servant (whose name we conveniently never say even though we all know who wei changze was).

mdzs is a book about the hypocrisy of the upper class. mdzs is a book about grief. mdzs is a book about society and rumors and politics and the pitfalls of chasing after what you are "owed". mdzs is a book about love and sticking to your own path and principles. wei wuxian is its protagonist, and by the novel's own values, he is indisputably good.

[mxtxfanatic]

Another pro-reader tip for mxtx novels: they are all stories with clear-cut good guys and bad guys and a strong moral message, BUT you have to actually read what the story has to say about characters without taking anything at face value, relying on genre tropes, or using identities and statuses as shorthand to your understanding of the moral system and themes of the story. So no, most characters in her stories are not morally gray (though some are, most can be definitively categorized as either morally good or bad, and ALL of her main characters are definitively morally good), and no she does not write morally gray plots where “morality is just subjective!” If anything, the term I think people are looking for is “morally neutral” (meaning that the thing is not assigned a morality in and of itself) in many cases.

An mxtx character is never designated as good or bad based off their backgrounds or class: Wei Wuxian, Jin Guangyao, Shen Jiu, and Mu Qing all grow up outside of the elite class, but Mu Qing (eventually) and Wei Wuxian are unquestionably good guys while Jin Guangyao and Shen Jiu are unquestionable villains. Shen Yuan, Lan Wangji, and Xie Lian all grow up within the gentry class but are all good guys while Jiang Cheng, Jun Wu, and The Old Palace Master are bad. Likewise, life circumstances or tools don’t determine morality. In mdzs, the sword path (which is the orthodox one) is used to commit genocide by the general cultivation world just as easily as Lan Wangji wields it to protect the forsaken commoners. Wei Wuxian’s ghost path was created to protect himself before being used to protect others, but Xue Yang and the Jin Clan pervert it to cause mass destruction for their own wishes. In tgcf, Xie Lian uses his god powers to attempt to help the Yong’an people while the other gods simply collect worshippers to increase their power and oppress lesser gods. Every character I’ve listed minus the Old Palace Master has experienced intense trauma that has informed their lives and colors their morality, but it does not define why they have chosen to take on certain moral stances.

(This is not to say that mxtx doesn’t have certain tropes she dislikes, as she clearly hates the “dedicate their whole existence completely to another person” trope. Su She, a villain dedicated to Jin Guangyao, dies. Zhuzhi-lang, a sympathetic antagonist dedicated to Tianlang-jun, dies. Hua Cheng, A WHOLE LOVE INTEREST dedicated to the literal main character, dies a whopping three (3) times before he learns his lesson.)

Mxtx does not condemn those who stray from orthodoxy. In fact, every story she’s (currently) written is about the dangers of entrenched and unquestioned hierarchy and status quo giving way to corruption every time. She wants you to question the dominant narrative of the benevolent group who descend from on high to “save the ignorant masses.” She wants you to question the idea that the only people with the right of choice are those at the top of the hierarchy. She wants you to question the idea that even the smallest decision of “powerless” people does not matter in “the grand scheme of things.” She wants you to actually think about the story conventions that you accept as infallible and question whether or not it would make for good shorthand by which to understand well-written characters and story arcs (and also, hopefully, how society is structured at large). So if you find yourself reading an mxtx novel and siding with the mob characters or lamenting how x character was locked into making certain choices “against their will” or being unable to reconcile how a recognized trope led to an unexpected conclusion because “that’s not how it’s supposed to go,” then it may do you some good to stop and ask yourself “was this idea supported by the narrative that I read in the book, or is this an idea I’ve come to entirely from my own preconceived notions of how I wanted the story to turn out based on how other, similar stories have panned out?”

[admirableadmiranda]

Sometimes it feels like the main message that a lot of people miss in MDZS in their leaps to justify one character’s hatred for another or attempting to remove them from the world because they will never be at peace until that person is completely eradicated, is that it poses a question of “how much blood does it take to satisfy the anger? How much death is necessary to live? How much pain that you want to inflict is truly equal to what you have suffered? Where is the line between justice, vengeance and murder?”

MDZS does not have our modern sensibilities and laws for such a thing, and it’s on purpose. It’s set in a time where there is no emperor or god onscreen to merit out justice or retribution, it’s all in the hands of the mortals. They get to decide how much is enough.

And the thing that so many people miss is that for almost every character (and I will include Wei Wuxian in this with a caveat) go too far at some point. Sure, the desire to kill your brother’s killer is understandable. But what about the people who you harm in that path? Nie Huaisang does end up taking down Jin Guangyao, but the cost is that Qin Su also dies, destroyed even before her death by the reality of what the men around her will stoop to do out of pride and anger, what they will use her for in the process.

Why do I stand so firmly against the people who say that Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng had their reasons, that they were right to go as far as they did? Because the text itself does take the time to show us what is reasonable in that world and what is greedy, wrathful, unjustified.

Jiang Cheng has every right to hate the men who invaded his home and killed his family. In the natures of their society it is not wrong for him to step him and take revenge against them. The supervisory camps in Yunmeng were built on the blood of his people. I have no qualm with him removing them from his land, even though it ends in their deaths.

But that does not mean that his righteous war should extend to all who bear the Wen name and that is where the gap comes in. Wen Chao had him tortured and his golden core crushed. By the rules of that world as extolled by Xiao Xingchen when talking to Xue Yang, it is reasonable to take back what was done to him in blood there.

But Wen Ning is not Wen Chao. Wen Ning risked his life, his sister’s life and ultimately ended up contributing to Wen Ruohan’s campaign toppling and ending in dust because when he was offered the choice to either stick by his family or stick by his morals, he chose the former. The Wen’s attack on Lotus Pier was wrong. The lives they took were unjustified. Their actions were deplorable.

By standing up and protecting Jiang Cheng in the way he does, smuggling him back out of Lotus Pier and hiding him away from the Wen who would kill him, he is declaring that his own family is in the wrong, and instead makes a sacrifice that could have had him and his sister killed should Wen Ruohan ever find out about it.

Jiang Cheng knows this. This is where the right of hatred falls flat. This is where his righteous anger becomes a hunger for blood that will never be satiated.

Now I’m not saying that Jiang Cheng should hug and kiss Wen Ning for everything. There are limits to what humans can endure, even ones as good as Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. But he refuses to ever acknowledge what he knows. He refuses to ever act in kind. He owes a debt and he knows it. And he instead not only refuses to pay it by not necessarily taking them into his lands, but even acknowledging that they did anything. He buries them with their family and his words. He lets his hatred overwhelm all else.

He was not powerless at the end of the war. Far from it, in fact! He had a sect that was still rebuilding its forces, but it had been three years since the start of the war so it can’t be tiny anymore, and he had Wei Wuxian with the Yin Hufu. The only two necromancers in the world, who are powerful enough to hold whole barriers on their own. This is the whole point of the display at Phoenix Mountain. Wei Wuxian is showing the other three great clans and all the smaller clans that it does not matter how many of them they have, Yunmeng Jiang has him and while they have him, they are untouchable. This is a known fact.

Jiang Cheng would have faced no long term retribution from doing anything. He could have simply let Wei Wuxian pull them out of the Jin indoctrination camp and take them through Yunmeng to somewhere else and after some grumbling and some pleading on Jin Guangshan’s part, nothing would have happened. Wei Wuxian is too strong and the other clans are too aware of that. No one was safer than Yunmeng Jiang at the end of the war.

That is why the Jin play off of his jealousy and anger and get him to throw aside Wei Wuxian. It is literally their only option.

This brings me to the other half of my discussion, which is where does the bloodshed end? What is enough spilled blood?

If Jiang Cheng hates Wei Wuxian enough to try to kill him, then this should be a vengeance that ends with Wei Wuxian’s death. Death ends all obligations. We owe no more money, we settle no more debts, we leave the shackles of the living in life and the dead move on as do the living.

So why then is it acceptable that Jiang Cheng spends the next thirteen years killing people that remind him of Wei Wuxian? That the moment that Wei Wuxian does return, his first action is to try and kill him again? That he tortures him multiple times and it is only Lan Wangji’s presence and Jin Ling’s quick thinking that save him on those occasions? By all rights including our modern ones, Wei Wuxian should be free and Jiang Cheng should have moved on in thirteen years. Thirteen years is long enough to raise a child almost to adulthood, but Jiang Cheng clings to a hatred that has had no outlet for that long and continues to try and demand Justice that he has already received.

Where is the line? When is enough? Why does the blood of innocents have to be paid too for the hunger of the mighty? Wen Ruohan subtly assassinated Nie Mingjue’s father, but Nie Mingjue decided that there was only to be death for anyone related to the Wen. They didn’t have to do anything, even if they tried to stop him it wouldn’t be enough. Only the death of every Wen would slake that hunger, and then in death when he is driven only by that hunger, only the death of every Jin. Including the ones who weren’t even old enough to hold a sword at the time he died. Jin Ling is as good as Jin Guangyao for Nie Mingjue to kill. All that matters is that he’s connected. All that matters is that there is another body to feed the never ending hate that fills him.

Xiao Xingchen says that for Xue Yang to take a finger or an arm from the man who harmed him as a child is reasonable. Even to kill him if that is truly the only way to end his hatred. But what is a finger to an entire family? “Because it is mine!” Declares Xue Yang and this is where the crux of it lies. “It is my hatred, it is my anger. It is my right to kill anyone because I am angry and I refuse to let it go.” This is the trait that Jiang Cheng, Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang all share. “I am angry and I am hurt so it is my right to do as I will and no one should take that away from me or I will hurt them too.”

This is why they are antagonists. This is why two of the three of them end up dead. This is why Jiang Cheng staying his hand in the temple and Wei Wuxian’s mercy towards him is the only reason that he survives the end. You can’t ask the world to feed your endless hatred. Eventually you will hurt the wrong person and by the very laws that you and the world have set, will come for you. There is no such thing as bloodshed without pain. There are people who will miss those who are gone. And not all of them will be as good as Lan Wangji. Not all of them will move forward in their lives and ignore you. Sometimes the oriole will stalk you in the shadows, waiting for the moment the praying mantis slips up. The wheel ever turns and those on the bottom eventually rise up.

Now as for Wei Wuxian, we see a different answer on him from the others and this is where his morals really come into play. Cause at first he does exact justice for those lost at Lotus Pier. Steps in which the narrative does not fully condemn him, but suggests lightly that it is the sort of thing that he does not linger in, as well as he himself looks back and decides that maybe he did go too far then. Maybe he did do too much in the name of anger and justice. Three months after the event he is willing to kill and torture Wen Zhuliu and Wen Chao. But three years later he looks at the members of the family that killed his and goes “I do not love you. But this is not right. You do not deserve this. I will not let you suffer this any longer even though your name is Wen.”

For Wei Wuxian, the line ends at the end of war, at the deaths of those who directly caused him the most pain. He does not necessarily forgive or absolve. But he does recognize that there is no sense in continuing the bloodshed or allowing others to continue it out of some misplaced sense of vengeance. He is offered a chance to stop the wheel and he tries. He tries so goddamn hard. He tries until it kills him and everyone else he protects because the anger of the rest is too wrapped up in their self righteousness to examine what is reasonable and what is the cost for what they do.

I do not exonerate the Lan here, but I do point out that they at least actually make an attempt to change things afterwards. We see it in the way that Lan Wangji continues to act in the world. We see it in the way that Lan Xichen stops and reconsiders what he knows of Wei Wuxian, and helps him when the wheel attempts to spin back to where it was before. Where the juniors go out hunting on their own to help people of all kinds. They find weird mysteries and they follow them, they are kind to all. It does not absolve what they have done in the past, it does not make them blameless.

But it is a start. And one that Jiang Cheng has not taken. If he had, we wouldn’t be having these debates and arguments about what is a reasonable enough amount of death and destruction that he can cause on account of his past.

This is where the line is.

Modaozushi asks the question of how much death is enough and concludes at the line “when you continue to court death to satisfy your anger, you will eventually find death standing at your door too.” It happens to Xue Yang, who after killing Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing and everyone in Yi City, finds A-Qing’s ghost leading those who can end his hurting of others for good. It happens to Jin Guangyao who assassinates and hurts so many people that Nie Huaisang finds allies in Mo Xuanyu, Sisi and Bicao, all of whom are willing to help him drag Jin Guangyao to the depths by the chains of his reputation.

Jiang Cheng is offered another chance. Leave Wei Wuxian alone and move forwards with his life. At the end of the book he accepts that chance. It is probably the last one he will get, but he accepts it. This is why he finishes out the book alive no matter how much blood he has on his hands. You can always change your actions until you are dead.

This is the question that Modaozushi posits and answers to all of us and to which I now offer to you when you consider the actions in story. What is enough? How much blood must be spilled before you are happy?

Why does it matter to you that those who are hurt are allowed to hurt without consequence? Where do you draw the line when all of those who caused you pain in the past are buried?

What is the price that you demand for your happiness? When is there enough blood on your hands to be happy?

When do you say “there has been enough death. I will stop this here and now because it is enough.”

Will you be the hero or the antagonist in someone else’s story?

[angstymdzsthoughts]

So Wangxian has lived many many decades together, grown old together, and lan wangji gets dementia. In his mind, it's just after Wei Wuxian has died. He can't find baby A-Yuán. He must rescue A-Yuán from the Jin soldiers, but he can't find baby A-Yuán

Dementia is one of those horrible monsters that just can't really be fought or cured and only managed by the people around you who have to watch you slowly decline. Devastatingly painful.

Imagine WWX trying to find a silverlining- getting some bitter-sweet joy every time he gets to watch LWJ remember that WWX is alive, that his love is returned, that they have a life together. After a few years LWJ doesn't even remember meeting WWX.

[cockyballventurez]

people often wonder how lan wangji had the willingness to live on for so long despite wei wuxian's death in all adaptations. i often laugh at it because in the story i don't remember him being a robot who only has one purpose to live! he is a person in the context of all of it. he is quite a human character, as is most the cast, but he really points out the very real, often times struggle, human trait of making mistakes. making mistakes in infallible but since characters in high-fantasy are usually portrayed with a main character halo (slight reference to svsss/stallion novels), he was actually a breath of fresh air. He constantly didn't let himself make mistakes and slowly learnt to just be desensitised to everything. Once Wei WuXian came along, Lan WangJi started making mistakes and being more than just a "cocky" boy with fancy titles. Wei WuXian had definitely reintroduced and introduced things to him eg. feelings of love/admiration. He made such a huge impact on him. He allowed himself to strictly apply his own morals in life and not just the Lan Clans. I feel that the elders didn't like this Lan WangJi. They wanted the Twin Jade. The perfect disciple.

They started putting all the blame on Wei WuXian. Even continuing to do so after he died. I bet that Lan WangJi became another huge topic like Wei WuXian did. He used to be "perfect". This is relatable for all students and people who have constantly been praised for their perfect work and manners but the moment they get burnt out they get turned into a bad example. MDZS's depiction of this is surely more extreme in its consequences but it can feel like this exaggeration sometimes. What I wanted to mainly talk about was just how Lan WangJi managed to not just end his life short after Wei WuXian as many people thought that he would attempt to just keep himself isolated like his father did.

Again, I'd like to reiterate that Lan WangJi is a person in MDZS. He is not perfect and has human flaws. His morals are mainly infused with the Lan Clan's meaning that he learnt to let go and to not grieve excessively. Of course after being able to discover himself in a more degenerative light (COUGH wei wuxian COUGH) he had to re-adjust to how he was before Wei WuXian. But only then the " how he was before " is different. He was essentially unable to move much after getting whipped. Which is why he spent the remaining energy on SiZhui. Making sure he got all the good parts from him and Wei WuXian. So WangJi himself would be able to move on in a healthy way. His back was killing him (constantly and literally). SiZhui was the silver lining in his life when he was experiencing the most pain and at his lowest. 13 years later, he turned out to be a great disciple and person. Thanks to Lan WangJi being a "father" to him and likely due to the traits he got from him and wei wuxian, also just being raised in the Lan Clan.

also bear

[esamastation]

Some mostly Jiang Cheng centric Mdzs fic ideas

1 Jiang Cheng, under the influence of Stress, Pressure, the Concern of a Big Sister, More Stress and flat out panic over the state of Mostly Destroyed Yunmeng Jiang sect, squints at Wei Wuxian's band of Wen Remnants and goes "So, how do we smuggle them to Lotus pier, in pairs, or…?" Because obviously his stupid overachiever elder brother has gone behind his back to replenish their ranks. That's got to be what it is. Right? It's not like Wei Wuxian is just trying to secede from the sect in the most stupidly dramatic way. Right?!

2. Via so many Shenanigans, involving like 300k fic's worth of drama and transmigrations, a version of Shen Yuan and OG Luo Binghe have found eternal, immortal bliss. Then a bullshit plot device shows them a version of Bingliushen and Bingge becomes obsessed with finding his other missing husband. Problem is, in his world Liu Qingge died centuries ago. Best they can do is wait for him to be reborn. Yeah. Jiang Cheng is not prepared.

2.5. Alternatively, Jiang Cheng grows up remembering his life as Liu Qingge. (He's still not prepared.)

3. Jiang Cheng is the one thrown into the Burial Mounds without his Golden Core and unlike Wei Wuxian he doesn't come out a Master of Demonic Cultivation. He comes out a Master of Demons. Aka, Jiang Cheng beastmasters his way to whipping various resentful spirits and beasts under his command. (Wei Wuxian probably follows him down that path, though. And doing better at the whole resentful energy thing because of course he does. Twin resentful heroes of Yunmeng Jiang, though. Hmm.)

4. One of the reasons Jiang Yanli's cultivation is so weak is because she's stuck in a time loop, reliving her life, trying to stop things from going horribly wrong, and it's eating away at her Golden Core. It's been centuries since she was the heir and the far too young sect leader of Yunmeng Jiang of her first life and she's so tired. But now, finally, she's managed to manoeuvre things so that Wei Wuxian has become the Head Disciple Yunmeng Jiang - rather than the dreadful, monstrous, overpowered thing he became in Qishan Wen in her first, awful, life.

5. Jiang Cheng is known for his obsessive hunt for demonic cultivators. It is known that when he catches one of those demonic cultivators, they are never seen again. Is assumed that he does to them what he wishes he could've done to his demonic cultivator of a martial brother, taking the opportunity to live his missed chance on their hides. Yunmeng Jiang's influx of new, powerful disciples is only proof of his fearsome reputation, as who wouldn't want to join such a righteous cause? … Aka, Jiang Cheng conscripts demonic cultivators into Yunmeng Jiang in spite (in preparation) of Wei Wuxian's inevitable return.

[gentil-minou]

once upon a time, 很久很久以前

Once upon a time, there lived a magical boy who was lost far, far away from home… Wei Wuxian is perfectly ready to celebrate another mediocre birthday alone when a ten-year-old shows up on his doorstep claiming to be his son. This kid is convinced everyone in his town has been dragged away from their xianxia world and cursed to live as ordinary citizens in a mundane small town, and he's certain that Wei Wuxian is the key to saving them, his other dad, and their entire world. He sounds insane, but, well, Wei Wuxian likes him. Besides, what else can he do but follow him back home? (A Wangxian AU based on the show Once Upon a Time, no prior knowledge of said show necessary)

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Transmigration, of the townwide variety, Amnesia, of the nearly everyone variety, Mystery, of the shenanigans variety, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn Has Self-Esteem Issues, wwx is sad and down bad, Single Parent Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, except a-yuan runs away to find his other dad, Fluff and Angst, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Minor Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending

Wangxian + A-Yuan + Minor Characters | WIP 4/? | 52K | Rated M

Preview under the cut

Once upon a time, there was a boy who believed he loved the world more than it could ever love him.

He would be proven very wrong.

~

Everyone loves the birthday boy.

They especially love him several shots in on Halloween night, wearing an outfit that’s little more than a couple scraps of fabric hastily sewn together in some approximation of a “Sexy Whatever”. Privately, Wei Wuxian calls it Dealer’s Choice, letting whoever he’s currently flirting with decide what it is.

It doesn’t matter; that’s never been the point of the night. Sure a birthday is meant to be spent celebrating, but that’s a bit harder to do when he doesn’t have anyone to celebrate with. It would be fine, as long as he could have as many free drinks as he could score and at least a passably decent fuck, he’d consider it a good night.

Really, when it comes down to it, it’s just another day. Halloween, yes, which makes it a moderately better one. But beyond that bit of fun that comes with picking up a pretty stranger at a bar, there really isn’t much else to look forward to. This is how Wei Wuxian expects to celebrate his birthday:

He’d saunter into how ever many establishments it takes until he finds a pretty enough stranger he can stand being around. The pretty stranger would look him up and down, dragging their eyes over his toned long legs and resting far too long at the slope between his narrow waist and wide hips. And for that one moment, he’d be the most important boy in the world.

He’d get a few free cheap drinks and eventually, they’d find their way to some back alley with its familiar stench of overripe garbage and piss. He’d let himself be pressed up against the brick wall, rough against his back; the perfect distraction from everything else. Then the pretty stranger would stick their tongue far enough down his throat so that he could pretend this day is just like any other.  

In between sloppy kisses and sub-par groping attempts, they’d get his name wrong while he’d have already forgotten theirs. They’d mutter a “Happy Halloween, Birthday Boy” like so many one-night stands before them, and he’d giggle and laugh like it’s the very first time. It’s never difficult to plaster a patented smile and play pretend. Then he’d drop to his knees and let the world fall away.

Finally, after however many drinks and strangers it would take to make him forget, he’d stumble back to his basement studio with just enough awareness to take off his shoes before passing out on his secondhand stained mattress. His dreams would be fast and incomprehensible, a mosaic of imaginary maybes and a dream of a life he’d never had.

This is how he’s celebrated the last several years, and it’s how he expects to celebrate this year as well. 

Because it’s not just Halloween and it’s not just his birthday. It’s the anniversary of his parents leaving their son behind in a dingy alley, wedged between a dumpster and a pile of soggy cardboard. Not even the barest hint of an afterthought, like maybe we shouldn’t leave this small defenseless child asleep and at the mercy of sewer rats?

But if the liquor is strong enough and the haze is just right he wouldn’t remember that until the next morning. That’s what the night is really for. Not a celebration or anything like that, but a desperate attempt at some peace away from this life of his.

Tonight will be his twenty-fifth birthday, and it might as well not be at all.

And then it will end, and November 1st will come around, and the world will keep turning like it always does.

But somehow, not one of those things goes according to plan. In fact, the universe has a completely different plan for him this year, it seems. 

Read more on Ao3

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

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1. Excuse me, but could anyone tell which Wangxian fic has Wei Wuxian as someone who works as a cursebreaker in a modern setting and meets Lan Wangji when his laptop got cursed? I really want to reread it again, please? @kaitou-cure-prism12

FOUND! Crossed Wires by stardust_and_sunlight (T, 20k, wangxian, modern cultivation, college/university au, meet-cute)

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2. I'm hoping you can help me re-find a fic I read a while back. It was a WIP at the time, a modern AU, and it started with JZX calling in a favor from LWJ to help him find a good present for JZX's fiance's brother (WWX). LWJ researches WWX online and gets intrigued and also recommends that JZX give WWX a dizi. Thanks! @marbleglove

FOUND! The Trials of Purchasing Gifts for a Gremlin by MavisMelisande (T, 3k, XuanLi, WangXian, Modern AU, LWJ Has Friends, Social Media, Christmas Presents, POV LWJ, POV JZX)

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3. hello, thank you for all your hard work! I was on twitter following this thread a few months ago then forgot and now twitter is glitchy but i rmb the author said she will poster on ao3! She has a small following then and it’s so hard to find it on ao3 might be incomplete I’m not sure but I really want to know how it ends cause it’s k wording me

- it’s about lan zhan writting to himself from a different universe? wei Ying dies or something in another universe and Lan zhan is trying it to prevent again

- high school setting

- no it’s not the space one!!

thanks in advance guys, you all the backbone of the fandom 💛 @meedorin

FOUND? 至少还有你 | in another life by nagiusagi (T, 16k, wangxian, modern, high school au, LWJ pov, heavy angst w happy ending, hurt/comfort, pain, hurt WWX, student WWX, student LWJ, letters from past, implied/referenced child abuse, character death (JYL), grief, misunderstandings, teenage wangxian, WWX’s hair ribbon, forehead ribbon exhange, pianist LWJ, parallel universes)

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4. Hey I am looking for two fics !

I have searched many tags but i cannot find them

A) this is set in post canon where lwj and wwx visit a village for nighthunt I think but they find lwj's mother's family ? It was a oneshot ig

B) This is a modern au fic again a oneshot ig? The only thing i remember is that lwj was a fashion icon here and very sassy . Oblivious Wwx as usual ! i think wwx implied lwj like mianmian and later lwj talks to his brother and says " brother do i not look gay enough?" .I do not remember anything else . Also it had good friendship dynamics with almost everyone.No angst but again i can be remembering wrong . Also !!!!! Lwj wore heels ( it wasn't a genderbend fic )

4A)

FOUND? Gentian Seeds by yuyu_finale (T, 9k, WangXian, Thirteen Years of WWX’s Death, at first, Post-Canon, later on, Mentioned Madam Lán, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, but literally, some elements of character study, Soft WangXian) LWJ discovers his mother's hometown

FOUND? The Same Cloth by x_los (T, 8k, WangXian, Established Relationship, Case Fic, Aftermath of a Case, Family Feels, Family Drama, Family Bonding, Family Secrets, Clothing Porn, Worldbuilding, Government, Chief Cultivator LWJ, Married Life, Character Study, Post-Canon)

4B)

FOUND? Turn the Other Cheek by Minyoongiisacatuwu (E, 19k, WangXian, Unreliable Narrator, Modern, Oblivious WWX, Panties, LWJ flirting very hard, Rabbits, Rimming, Mutual Pining, LWJ is a top in a Thong, LWJ in heels, Fashionista LWJ, Friends to Lovers, Aftercare, Porn with Feelings, College/University)

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5. Hello, I'm looking for a fic where WWX thinks he has a miscarriage in the burial mounds and then ends up giving birth at the end of the war.

FOUND? Impermanence, Transience, Permanence by Best Bepsy (BepsyGray) (E, 39k, wangxian, canon divergence, unplanned pregnancy, mpreg, gore, sunshot campaign, assumed miscarriage, medical procedures, childbirth, golden core reveal)

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6. Hi! I'm looking for a fic where wwx is a single parent to lwj's child. They knew each other in school and were friends, but wwx disappeared after yzy kicked him out. Wwx has been sending letters to lwj to tell him about their child but lwj never saw any of the letters. The meet again after some years and lwj gets to know his child and it turns out that it was lxc who intercepted all the mail and destroyed it before it could get to lwj. I think lxc was angry that wwx was stringing along his brother and disappeared without a word, but didn't realize that wwx had snuck into the house to see lwj one last time. Thanks!

FOUND? Nothing but your heart by airinshaw (E, 21k, WangXian, Modern AU, A/B/O Dynamics, Implied Mpreg, First Time, Getting Together, Angst and Drama, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anal Sex, Whump, Breeding Kink)

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7. I was wondering if you can help me find a fic. It was so long ago I'm ngl. I remember it was stormy and the cultivators had to seek shelter or they saved someone. In return that someone a 'fortune teller' could show the future. I remember I think Qiren was wary. She showed the future to the previous generation like cangse sanren and lan qiren. I think she also showed the future to Wei wuxian generation. It might have been in Portuguese or spanish maybe. It could have been in english. @whitewoodwalker

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8. Hi, I'm looking for a certain fic where Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli send Wei Wuxian to Gusu after the end of the Sunshot Campaign because they're worried about him. WWX really doesn't want to go and I think they end up drugging him?? He is in a really bad headspace for part of the fic. @noxgold​

SIMILAR Swordless by WithBroomBefore (G, 32k, WangXian, Established Relationship, Canon Divergence, WWX goes to Gusu, Golden Core Reveal, Trans Character, AFAB LWJ, philos) and "Rescue" by the same author also has some similaritis

FOUND? but I think you're looking for if i had the strength by agloeian (M, 16k, wangxian, post-sunshot, hurt/comfort, getting together, fix-it, tgcf style gods, mental health issues, recovery, accidental baby acquisation)

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9. Hi could you pls help me find a fanfic I read about wangxian in which Wei Ying was stoic and lan Wangji was shameless I thing Wei Ying grew up in Gusu in that fanfic it was basically a personality switch au

I this one was a deleted fic but I can't remember the name rn 😓

FOUND? Uno Reverse by A_flower_in_the_snow (M, 62k, wangxian, lan WWX, OOC, role reversal, not JC friendly, not Jiang friendly, time travel fix-it, WIP) Deleted but can still be found in wayback machine. The author goes by xinXiniieboo currently afaik.

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10. Plz help me i'm looking for a fanfiction And all I remember is a time travel on another fanfiction named the rise of the divine oracle 😭😭it was like after they dead they were sent to the past to try and change there future with madam yu being to be nice to see ying

well rise of divine oracle was by Blak_Salt and is on ffnet and ao3 but is post canon not time travel (tho an excellent fic). I wonder, is ur time travel fic the one where post canon everyone dies so wwx tries to send himself back in time but it messes up and goes too far - prior gusu lectures, and it makes him sickly and he doesn't actually consciously remember the future. Instead events trigger memories from the future that he (& everyone else) thinks r visions. Madam yu becomes nice.

This probably fits here too:

whateverweilanlovechild: #12 haha i believe you are looking for the fic I wrote. I'm sorry to inform that it's discontinued and only 2 chapters are there as of now

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11. Hello mods!! I've been looking for a very specific fic for a while now but I can't find it with the usual tags. It's wangxian, post canon and mpreg, where LSZ, studying the gold cores, tries to help WWX form a new one by dual cultivatition (with LWJ) but instead accidentally gets him pregnant. I hope you can help me and thanks in advance! @jenaerith

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12. Plz help me 🆘  im looking for a time travel fanfiction was about the wy an lz who time traveled to the past from the original fanfiction named "the rise of the divine Oracle” @bunnychwan​

whateverweilanlovechild: #12 haha i believe you are looking for the fic I wrote. I'm sorry to inform that it's discontinued and only 2 chapters are there as of now

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13. Hello, (this is not a WangXian fic but a Xichen fic) I Think it was set in modern world. It was some kind of party and the OC's was an adopted foreigner who is a designer for clothes. Xichen then invited her to like some kind of stargazing that night that's all I remember about the first chapters but like in the middle of the plot(?) He found out that OC needed him that's why she accepted his proposal

//

Hi, I just want to find a fic it's about a Xichen x OC set in Modern world (I think) Oc was an adopted rich heiress or something but she is a designer(?) They met a party and Xichen asked if they could go on stargazing(?) Then Fast forward to the middle of the story, Xichen and Oc are in a relationship then Xichen found out that OC needed him to marry her inorder for her to adopt the kid she was set to adopting.

FOUND? His Mistress, His Wife by PhoenixLumen (E, 26k, LXC/OFC, wangxian, check all the tags from the work before reading, smut, porn w feelings, porn w plot, modern, attempt at humor, BDSM, bondage, bottom LXC, submissive LXC, brotherly bonding, businessmen, safe sane and consensual, implied/referenced child abuse & neglect, multiple pov, strong female character, marriage proposal)

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14. This is a bit of an obscure one but I'm trying to find a fic: I don't remember if it was time travel or something else but something happened that led to Lan Zhan having to immobilize Wei Ying like Wen Qing did to him after Qiongqi Path, despite Wei Ying telling him he wouldn't survive it if it happened to him (again?) and then when they meet again they have to deal with the fact that Lan Zhan did it anyway. I can't remember the context so hopefully someone recognizes it anyway @vulpestars

FOUND? If You Forget Me by DivideTheSorrow (Not Rated, 189k, WangXian, JYL/JZX, YZY/JFM, WIP, Time Travel, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Build, Relationship(s), Canon Divergence, Eventual Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, POV Alternating, Original Character(s), Angst)

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15. Hello, I'm looking for a fic if you have the time.

It's during the yiling patriarch era, not sure if it was during the war, it feels like it but the burial mounds and the wens are involved so I'm not sure. Wwx basically gets an Infection and is forced to amputate his leg. The wens do the amputating in (not sure) the burial mounds. Another Wen creates a wooden prosthetic leg for him.

Later, I think it was on the battlefield which is why the exact timelime is confusing me, wwx gets shot with an arrow in his prosthetic. Jin zixuan is there, gets worried and wwx is forced to reveal that he lost a leg. Or it could've been just a foot idk.

Thank you and goodbye.

FOUND? we’re starting at the end by Miss_Enthusiasimal (M, 92k, WangXian, JC & WWX, Time Travel, Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Golden Core Reveal, Burial Mounds, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Starvation, emaciation, Cannibalism, Self-Harm, Amputation, Suicidal Thoughts, Sunshot Campaign, let JZX and WWX be friends club)  

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16. Hi, mods! Pls, Im looking for a fic (Modern AU) in which WWX (still alive) left LWJ (for now reason) & he goes mad, desperatedly looking for him in different men who look like WWX, but ends up killing 'em all during sex (it's BDSM, kinda gore, dark/obsessive LZ), until he meets real WY in a pub w/o knowing it's him (he introduces himself as Moxuanyu, but doesnt have Mo's appearance) & both end up together, sharing the same kink. LXichen, WQin & WN show up briefly, only 'cleaning' LWJ mess. TYSM @einherjermineord

FOUND? Dead Ringer by Regency_Bunny (E, 7k, WangXian, Modern AU, Dark LWJ, Dark WWX, Dark WangXian, Dark LXC, Murder, Sadism, Masochism, no kink shaming in this household (this is not your average healthy bdsm this is actual murder), Identity Porn, Doppelganger, Obsession, somnambulism, Minor Character Death, Mention of torture, Choking, Lan typical unhealthy relationships, identity theft, reference to suicide, Drunk LWJ, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Knifeplay, LWJ Swears, Happy ending (for some), Mildly Dubious Consent, Mention of illegal domestic imprisonment (not WangXian), Future murder husbands in the making) i just finished reading it and the description is on point <3

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17. Hello!! I was looking for a certain fic where Wei Ying turns into a child by accident and the juniors take care of him.I can't find it anywhere :( I hope you could help me with it!! But if you couldn't find it then a fic with similiar content can help too 😚 @for13years-i-play-inquiry-foryou

FOUND? most likely grow by cafecliche (T, 14k, WangXian, Age Regression/De-Aging, Character Study, Post-Canon) Easily the most famous of the fics with that description.

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18. Hii <3 I'm looking for this fic where wrh kidnaps wwx and is all nice to him because wwx is some kind of phoenix and well he shows wwx that the Jiangs are being killed and well wwx goes crazy and actually turns into a phoenix and the ans take wwx and imprison him because they know he is dangerous as the phoenix is wwx but not quite. @thatperson0-0

FOUND? Breathing Firestorm by ladyshadowdrake (M, 110k, wangxian, angst, fluff, captivity, creepy WRH, no non-con, dreamsharing, politics, people making the best decisions they can, epic length, mythical creature WWX, canon-typical violence, dark, happy ending)

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19. Hii I'm looking for this fic where wei ying and lan zhan form some kind of bond that makes them read each other's minds and feel how the other feels and in the end they try to sacrifice themselves to some kind of fight but instead they end up forming the same bond with meng yao, nie huaisang, jiang cheng and wen ning

FOUND? We Can See a New Start by  preciousbunnynoiz (M, 127k, wangxian, time travel, fix-it, soulmates, angst w/ happy ending, PTSD, hurt/comfort, communication, check all the tags) 

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20. For FF, I can't recall if it was time travel or not, but the scene I recall: CR arc, WWX refusing to copy his punishment texts in the library. He confessed to LWJ that he wasn't planning to complete the copying because the punishment was unfair. He said something like: it takes more than 1 to cheat (I think it was the cheating bit) but I'm the only one being punished. And that opened LWJ's eyes for the punching JZX scene. Can't remember where it went after but I really want to read LWJ's realization again. @mreisse

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[rosethornewrites]

NR, E, & M reading since 8/13

Finished

Not Rated:

There was a boy, by caesteves

"And the boy, who never stopped smiling despite every reason he had to cry, saw himself forgetting the voices of his loved ones. Their faces, the happy moments. Perhaps he was supposed to live a life of broken memories."

(Or, after a strange night-hunt, Wei Wuxian wakes without his memories.)

A different road, by ARavenIsBlack (2 chapters)

What if Lan Wangji never went back to find Wen Yuan, or couldn't find him?

Grown up a beggar and thief, Wen Yuan struggles to survive after a long winter. Then, two people come by that seem much richer than any other that stop by their lonely village. But trying to steal from them backfires horribly and Wen Yuan is left desperate.

Explicit:

A Matter of Time, by mrcformoso (8 chapters)

When Lan Wangji went back in time to the first time he met Wei Wuxian, he thought it would be on their spar on the rooftops. He thought of how much he would have to change their interactions through the Cloud Recesses, how he would have to find a way to split Wei Wuxian from the Jiangs…

But when he came to his body, he found himself holding out a toy drum to a little child, a little A-Ying, in the streets of Yilling.

'Huh.' Lan Wangji thought as the little boy smiled up at him. 'This will be easier than I thought.'

Or: After Wei Wuxian’s death, something broke in Lan Wangji. He would do anything to get the love of his life back, safely in his arms. Even rewrite history.

A Matter of Choice, by mrcformoso (2nd in a series)

Things have been moving so fast and in so many different directions that Wei Ying never got a chance to sit down and settle, to think. It was only now, now that the war had ended, and they have returned home that Wei Ying felt the weight on his shoulders, the gravity of the situation.

Wei Ying’s mind was clashing, fighting and tripping over itself. Two vastly different childhoods wrestled in his soul, experiences and traumas he never thought of in years reared its ugly head. Not only that, but he knows what – or who – was behind it all. He knows the end goal. He knows the role he plays.

He has one year before his marriage. One year before he makes his choice.

Or: After the Sunshot Campaign, during the one year before his marriage to Lan Zhan, the barriers in Wei Ying’s mind fell and he must reconcile the aftereffects of regaining his memories, alongside the knowledge that his choice will decide the fate of the cultivation world.

Wei Laoshi, Poonslayer, by FeelsForBreakfast

Lan Wangji comes to two conclusions, almost simultaneously. The first, is that Nie Huaisang is messing with Wei Ying. The second, is that Wei Ying has never had sex in his life.

Or: Lan Wangji goes to Yunmeng, realizes that Wei Ying is a virgin, and takes decisive action.

Mature:

Back To The River (So Learn To Swim), by kalany (18 chapters)

Yu Ziyuan has been dead for over a hundred years, so it's a bit of a surprise when she dies.

One minute she's watching the youngest Lan daughter bow to her ancestors—it still baffles her that Wei Wuxian counts her as an ancestor, and that he's filial enough to have had a plaque made for her, but here they are—and the next she's choking on blood, her eyesight dimming. Wei Wuxian, she thinks furiously, what have you done now?

Then she wakes up.

Because her bladder is full.

Yu Ziyuan finds herself back in Lotus Pier, before any of her children have been born, and decides that things would go better if Jiang Yanli is the heir, not Jiang Cheng. One change leads to another, and another, and another.

And is Cangse Sanren flirting with her?

Things do not always go smoothly, but sometimes the family you find is the one you should have had all along.

lay down what's impeding you, by Karillith (2nd in a series)

"Just because I do not post them myself does not mean I cannot appreciate and acknowledge a thirst trap when it is in front of me."

Wei Wuxian's brain short-circuits for the millionth time in the last 24 hours. He's not sure what freaks him out more--that Lan Wangji agrees that it is, in fact, a thirst trap (a good one? please say it's a good one), or that he doesn't post them... but that he could have them.

Or,

5 times Lan Wangji makes thirsty comments at Wei Wuxian, and 1 time Wei Wuxian manages to do it back on purpose. Picks up where worst case scenario ends, but can be read as a standalone.

Unfinished

Not Rated:

Beiming: To Lament- 33 Reasons to Change the Past, by ravenhg (🔒)

It had been one week since Wei Wuxian’s life ended.

One week since his love, his life, his everything, had been ambushed by remnants of Jin Guangyao and Su She’s followers.

Wei Wuxian really should have known better.

“What will you do, gongzi?” Wen Ning asked quietly.

Wei Wuxian smiled, his eyes burning like coals.

_____________________

Or:

After the death of the most important person in their lives, Wei Wuxian and Lan Qiren choose to return to the past to prevent everything. This changes things.

In the End, by Sciatic_Nerd

What if, when Jiang Cheng felt he was forced to choose between protecting his beloved older sister or his loyal brother he remembered that Wei Wuxian always found the worst trouble and he never, ever remembered to guard his back.

Or, what if Jin Guangshan never managed to tear the Twin Heroes of Yunmeng apart.

Explicit:

The "Patriarch" Was Supposed to be Ironic (or, Wei Wuxian, Chief Cultivator), by groignequi

Wei Wuxian makes a wish he didn't intend; Lan Wangji creates a path forward.

___

The form flickers, letting curls of smoke form something like a smile, and responds, “What is it you want, patriarch?”

And Wei Wuxian, incautious at the wrong (the right) moment, says “A way to fix all of it.”

He hears the reply: “As you wish.”

He knows he’s made a mistake the second the form disperses, moving too fast and in too many directions to be called back and subdued.

___

Only a few hours later, in Koi Tower, a visiting handmaid finds her madam crying over rumors about her daughter’s marriage.

The Threads of Fate, by WaitForTheSnitch

“What would you do if you could have him back?” Nie Huaisang asked him, a bit too seriously as he leaned forward.

“There is no way for a dead cultivator to return,” Jiang Cheng scoffed, not even willing to entertain the thought.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Nie Huaisang shrugged, “Even if he came back, that wouldn’t do much to help, would it? Your sister is still gone. His reputation still damaged.”

“Stop speaking in riddles,” Jiang Wanyin growled, “What did you come here for, Nie Huaisang?”

“I asked you what you would do for your brother back,” Nie Huaisang started, “I would do anything to have mine back, Jiang Wanyin. And I’m here to offer you that same choice. Because our brothers’ deaths never should have happened. They happened because of schemes and plots. They happened because of lies and deception. Your brother was made to be a villain and was led to his death because he was too powerful. Mine was murdered because he stood in the way of Jin Guangshan.”

There's nothing Jiang Cheng wouldn't do to have his siblings back. And when Nie Huaisang comes to him with a proposal to save them by changing everything, he doesn't even hesitate to agree.

Only with Time, by adrian_kres

Thirteen years ago, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were arranged to be married as is tradition. Throughout their thirteen-year-long "courtship," things were not always as they seemed. Now, newly married, old secrets have ripped open wounds they thought were closed, and they must work together to rebuild a trust they never had and a love they always did but couldn't see.

Told from alternating points of view between LWJ and WWX with frequent flashbacks to memories of their "courtship".

The Second Hand Unwinds, by trulywicked (🔒)

Sent back in time without his husband after a night hunt gone wrong, Lan Wangji is determined to ensure that Wei Wuxian’s safety and in the process hopefully mitigate, if not prevent, the war.

Through marriage among other things.

Mature:

Army Dreamers, by Forever_Marie

Lan Wangji finds Wei Wuxian in the field with strangle marks and other horrible injuries after Lotus Pier falls.

He takes him back to Gusu.

(一日三秋) One day (seems like) three autumns, by SpicyRamen_10969

13 Years ago, Wei Ying disappeared.

13 years later, two teenage boys find a man collapsed and bleeding on the side of the road.

This is the story of how Wei Ying finds himself going from homeless to living with his childhood best friend, Lan Wangji, and finally getting the help and love he needs and deserves.

(Un)Hidden truth, by Sarah_R

After watching his husband; his son; nephew; brother and little radishes dying in front of him one by one because of a source of resentful energy; Wei WuXian dies too as he destroys it.

But instead of darkness; he finds himself back in the past when he had just gotten kicked out of the cloud recess and everything looks so peaceful he can’t stand it. No…no no no he really can’t go through this hell again. Not again. Not after everything was supposed to be over.

Not knowing that Lan WangJi has been thrown back in time as well; he tries; and fails at taking his own life by slitting his throat open in the middle of lotus pier and so; he decides to show everyone the future.

If he’s going to live this hell again; he’s going to change it and if these people are suddenly so determined to keep him alive; then he’s not going to let them die either.

It doesn’t matter if they end up hating him just as much as he hates himself.

(Or; another time travel fix-it which happens to be a watching the show fic as well! With our favorite baby boy and his husband; all their ducklings and their very much alive family and friends from the past.)

[iwantjellyfsh]

Crossover Fics I would die happy if were created.

TGCF x DC Universe - Mu Qing gets into DC universe somehow and becomes either becomes a League of Assassins' servant (Damian's personal one) or Alfred adopts him. Either way exploring what Mu Qing feels being a servant to the wealthy again. Or in the Damian one, Mu Qing comes to Gotham with Damian because like hell is he letting this literal child go alone (he's getting Hong Honger flashbacks). And the batfamily just wonders why tf Damian is so not a little demon brat to Mu Qing. (there has to be some symbolism with blue, like if he wears it bc that's what he wore during the Xian Le servant era)

DC Universe x Class of 09 - Kind of like a Magic & Mystery situation with Tim Drake infuriating the school. It could be a trafficking ring because of how many p3doph!les there are or smt. Either Tim interacting with the absolute insanity that is (I think the game location is georgetown?) highschool. Or him coming back messed up to bits like "Miss. I'm a sociopath" is coming back with a bang. The ending with prison maybe Timcole can see Joker? And manipulate him? Either joins the rouges or manipulates them.

MDZS x DC Universe - Lan Wangji as Damian Wayne makes so much sense to me. Emotionless, rule following, animal lovers. Would Lan Zhan find comfort in the LOA? Following their rules and training? It's just really interesting... does he find Wei Wuxian (ship of choice)? Lan Xichen (definitely Dick Greyson)?

TGCF x DC Universe - Hua Cheng / Tim going crazy trying to find Xie Lian. Becomes a rouge and breaks into bat cave cutely. Batfamily or the Sirens start finding the little stalker cute. Maybe Xie Lian just doesn't exist in this world and Ra's tries to grab the little psycho. Maybe he becomes batman when Bruce get's lost in the time stream?

Black Butler x DC Universe - Ciel Phantomhive as Bruce Wayne. Sebastian Michaels as Alfred Pennyworth... Unlocked after Bruces parents die? Alfred always knew????

Angels of Death x DC Universe - I want Rachel at the ending to attempt self delete but she like fails (Zack is still gone (maybe)) and decides to run away to the states. I want Rachel to attempt to be like Zach and for Jason to find her. Like he's doing his shtik at the LOA and he find Tichel either getting hurt or murdering someone. Or Tichel is still Red Robin somehow but they imprint on each other when Jason goes to kill them. I want family feels luving !!!

Bungo Stray Dog's x DC Universe - Rampo dies super sad but BUT he comes back as Damian Wayne and can you imagine this 26 year old man who's never run a mile in his life do assasin training? LOA doesn't give good vibes and Ramian makes that everyones problem. Also he completely shows up Tim Drake and Bruce Wayne "Smartest Detective Duo" This is his PRIDE on the line ppl! Does he do vigilante things or sneak in the background because violence is boring snacks are life?

Genshin Impact x JJK - Imagine Kaebedo as Satosugu. Does Albedo take the Gojo Clans whole thing laying down? Imagine calm Gojo I think canon would combust. Kaeya stays mostly the same in my opinion...

Danny Phantom x Class of 09 - Nicole dies then just decides to sonder off to the most haunted place ever™. She could become Danni (clone) somehow or be Phantom... Ghost King Nicole is my Roman Empire she'd burn the place to the ground.

TGCF x Naruto - Can go Kakashi as Xie Lian or Xie Lian as Kakashi, either way is about to come more traumatized than anyone barganed for. Obito / Hua Cheng can come too because the obsessiveness. Make Hua Cheng / Obito a little more crazy and he wants infinate Tsukoyomi so Xie Lian / Kakashi will quit being traumatized !!! Codependency is key and they could both join Akatsuki for shits and giggles.

Demon Slayer x Angels of Death - Muichiro with Rachel Gardener personality is curious... how much would be different?

[least-carpet]

do you maybe have some more chengning thoughts or wen ning gets a life snippets you want to share👀

Hi, anon! I'm a little stuck on "Wen Ning Gets a Life," so maybe I'll ramble about that.

One of the problems that I've had with "Wen Ning Gets a Life" is that I have two tonally different streams of thought about Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng and they both kind of got mashed into a single fic. But like. The vibes are different! What have I done! But it's too late now, I think. I have enough to puzzle my way through to an ending.

One of those ideas is about monkey's paw-ing Wen Ning to the max. What if the universe what infinitely both cruel (you get what you thought you wanted and it sucks) and also, for once, kind (the experience still teaches you about yourself and then you can move on)? I don't really think of Wen Ning as a person with a lot of insight, which, like, dude died at like 16 and spent 13 years chained to a wall with nails in his head! The opportunities to learn through experience have been limited. This applies to Wen Ning, Wei Wuxian, and Wen Qing. All of them have been literally or figuratively dead for that intervening time. They have different responses to trying to return to life, and Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian are actively going insane because their go-to strategies ("fix it" and "run away and live in denial") aren't working so great. Only Wen Ning, whose strategy is "yoto (you only live twice)," is having any fun at all, and that's completely by accident. I'm trying to just focus on that.

Something about Jiang Cheng and Wen Ning accidentally fucking their way into a relationship is hilarious to me, and, you know, I've seen people do that more than once in real life (without like... witnessing the sex bit, obviously...). Like, in many cases, what is good for the hole is not good for the soul, but sometimes it IS good for both, actually, and part of the sexual compatibility is the inadvertent emotional intimacy! It will take them at least 5 years before they talk about anything, and a lot of sex, because I think it's affirming for both of them. Wen Ning is kind of growing into a new self-image and self-understanding and Jiang Cheng is getting praise and physical touch and also one place where he doesn't have to be responsible for anything. But I don't know if they talk about it? I know Wen Ning and Wen Qing have to talk, and Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng have to talk, and certainly Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng need to interact but I don't think I'm going to get them to the Conversation... hmm.

The other one is about moral injury, which is genuinely such a downer that I've cut most of it. Moral injury is a kind of trauma that happens when you witness or perpetrate actions that violate your own moral beliefs. It's distinct from PTSD and involves things like intense rumination about what happened—like I think Jiang Cheng likely has it in relation to everything that happened with Wei Wuxian, specifically in the form of him blaming himself for trusting him too much and that leading to Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli's deaths. In relation to Wen Ning, I think killing the Wen Remnants could be an additional source of moral injury, and that could mirror Wen Ning's experience of the fall of Lotus Pier. I am really interested in them as mirrors of each other. But anyway, I don't have a separate plot for this, and all of it would probably be pretty sad, so it doesn't really match "Wen Ning Gets a Life" very well.