tospellaloss

[whetstonefires]

As I'm doing my leisurely line annotation of mdzs I'm impressed by many things and one of them is how thoroughly it's spelled out that Wei Wuxian is, by nature and personal inclination, an incredibly difficult person to piss off. He just does not care about most insults.

Like. Wen Ning thought he was going to be mad at him, the day they met in Qishan, because Wei Wuxian stood up to a bully for him and then Wen Ning's nerves made Wei Wuxian look like a fool in front of all their peers, which while unworthy would actually be a fairly normal reaction. But in fact this never even occurred to him; he doesn't care about that kind of thing. He doesn't get mad on his own account and once the cut heals he forgets it was even made (idiomatic expression but also in his case possibly literal), these are defining attributes.

So the fact that two definitive chapters of his life wound up getting defined by his taking brutal revenge really serves to underline the level of provocation he was subjected to.

Also there's something there about him going off on Jin Zixuan the way he did back at Cloud Recesses. Because that was, actually, somewhat uncharacteristic behavior! He is not generally a punching first kind of guy!

Just about every other time we see him start a fight, or try to, he's either the one doing the shit-talking or there's someone there in immediate need of protection.

He punched that guy in the face not in the moment for being rude about Jiang Yanli, and not I think even for insulting Jiang Fengmian or treading on Wei Wuxian's own sensitive places, but because he hit on the statement that would be most painful to Jiang Cheng.