#wwx and the epic flute solo of doom

[melongumi]

Wen Ning :)

(For this ask meme.)

Wen Ning could do Laios DungeonMeshi and Laios DungeonMeshi could do Wen Ning, send post

...

okay but actual underrated thing I love about wen ning. this guy is so fucking funny. Unclear to which extent his physical comedy is a narrative trait versus, like, personal awkwardness, but since his eleventh hour merciless verbal takedown of jiang cheng demonstrates that he is at minimum sometimes aware of the impact of the shit he says, this opens the delightfully intriguing option that the physical comedy is also (sometimes) a deliberate Bit.

Wen Ning: Makes a sarcastic crack about you disguised as a confused/slow-on-the-uptake observation.

Wen Ning: Silently brandishes the sword he's about to use to untie some kids and pretends not to anticipate them screaming in terror at their apparently imminent demise.

Wen Ning: Slams the door open or whatever "on accident" to be A Fucking Inconvenience.

Wen Ning: Steals my heart.

[othercat2]

Okay so,

I would like to first say that I love the story (I can't however remember the name. Also I don't generally mention story names when I bring stuff up). BUT there is a small problem. That problem is that you can't do "ha ha he's oblivious to character A's affection!" jokes when the reason Character B is oblivious is because of crippling self esteem issues as a result of extensive child abuse.

I mean, you can do it anyway. No one is stopping you. It's just really dissonant when the "ha ha funny!" is paired up with, "My ability to logic is cracked due to emotional and physical abuse." (Yes, even if it's Fantasy Ancient China and psychology hasn't been invented yet.) This could be fixed easily with a little self-awareness and empathy on the parts of the folks who are exasperated by Character B's obliviousness.

On the other hand, I am not sure who is capable of noticing. The Jiang sibs have their own emotional abuse issues and clearly don't understand. (And may not be aware of their own abuse, due to the normalization affect abuse can have.) Lan Qiren in this fic is particularly odious, the Lans in general don't have a clue. (Lan Zhan, you aren't have cute little study dates, if that's what you were thinking, bro. WY thinks you're there to keep him out of trouble.) The Nies *might* have a clue from what I remember, but it's hard to say how much of one, and the same goes for the Wen.

I want to hug all the characters and/or bop their heads together. Especially Wei Wuxian.

[melongumi]

Xue Yang >:)

(For this ask meme.)

Kind of meta, but I love this guy for his reply here:

Xiao Xingchen was in utter disbelief. "When Chang Ci'an broke your finger--if you wanted revenge, why not also break one of his fingers? If you genuinely could not let go of this grudge, then break two of his fingers. Ten fingers! Even an entire arm would have been fine! Why did you have to kill his entire family? Did a single finger of yours need to be compensated by over fifty lives?" Xue Yang actually considered this seriously. "Of course," he replied, as if it was an odd question. "The finger was mine, but those lives belonged to others. No number of lives would've been enough. It was only fifty or so people--how could that be enough to pay for my finger?"

Xue Yang is a canny fellow, and we've seen enough to understand that he's self-aware of the fact that this is not a socially acceptable position to hold. But as far as he's concerned, I think, everyone's thinking it, even if they won't admit it, and anyone who's grabbed a bit of power will act the same way he did, if in a fashion displaying more hypocrisy and plausible deniability.

For my part, I don't think everyone's thinking it... but feelings are another matter, you know? Empathy and community aside, only we feel our own pain, and we feel no other pain but our own. With this in mind, I do think one aspect of the human condition is, every now and then, even knowing it's not justified, even absent of any true desire to act on it, everyone's going to feel that aching hollow that comes from being wronged in some way, and knowing the world is not going to make up for it, and wishing in some deep down corner that everyone who contributes to or ignores your grievance - that you have been wronged, that you are in pain, and they should be bending over backwards to fix it and aren't - should be made to pay for their transgression against you.

And of course, in order to live in a society and abide by social contract and not hurt people we care about, what we need to do is acknowledge that feeling and then release it into the Force and continue on with whatever course of action actually resolves the grievance (or just go on with our lives, if resolution isn't possible).

But it still! Feels pretty good to hear someone say it out loud with their whole chest, and act on it. For catharsis! And it additionally feels pretty good to watch the philosophy bring him to a mean, miserable, self-destructive end, because that part sort of vindicates you for all the times you (for a very harmless example) didn't kick your sibling in the shin for accidentally stepping on the back of your shoe even when you really, really wanted to.

[melongumi]

📓 fav MDZS discord chat you wish could be a fic

Hey that's too hard

However, right now (and also Frequently) I would say...

Wuxian Wei is Cool Middle Schooler from late 1990s California who, like many kids in 1990s California, Does Martial Arts. Unlike most of them, however, his teacher is a Chinese national who flies him out to Wuhan for ten weeks every summer (and may or may not be some kind of gangster? who wears that much purple? who does kung fu in a suit outside the movies?? is it legal to own that many swords? anyway).

It is not for Wuxian to question how Jiang-shifu manages to own a large manor house on multiple acres of waterfront in the middle of a densely-occupied city while not apparently working. Or why all the locals call him "Jiang-jiujiu" (even the really old ones??). Or who that really sick looking guy is who had the real sword that Shifu has now given to him and told him he has to carry all the time -- swords aren't allowed at school, Shifu!!!

Anyway Wuxian is pretty normal, he thinks. Just a guy with a sport. His biggest worry at the moment is his role in the school play, and how he's going to make it to rehearsals when he also has band and orchestra to work on.

Meanwhile, far away, an ancient weapon is stirring from where it was entombed for fourteen-hundred years... and the dead are rising.

[melongumi]

OKAY do you know how CQL really dropped the ball?

Xue Chonghai: Creator Of The Yin Iron.

Why would you invent this new character that renders Xue Yang’s backstory and character motivations incoherent... when you could have just handed the ‘made evil metal and everyone united to kill me’ ball to Yanling daoren, first recorded student of Baoshan sanren, mysterious he of the Canonical Death By “Became The World’s Enemy And Died Under Thousands Of Swords”? Mister “ohhh boy who do I remind you of? Is it the protagonist? I bet it’s the protagonist isn’t it”

I fuckin’ ask you

[melongumi]

[casting a surveying look at fandom interpretations of wei wuxian]

the meowmeow versus woobie schism...

[melongumi]

Important note. Yunping residents cannot be taken as reliable sources on Jiang Cheng’s work ethic or management style. Jin Guangyao’s dirty secrets are buried there. Like come on, the man’s definitely been imposing some kind of discouragement against Jiang interference in Yunping. That’s obvious basic operational security on jgy’s part.

You wanna know how Jiang Cheng is actually likely to be as a sect leader? Look no further than a comparison between his and wwx’s attitudes towards classes and training. Don’t get distracted chasing butterflies; be mindful of details; perform diligently. I don’t claim that he’s pleasant to work with or takes care of minor events personally, but if he wasn’t delegating and making sure his responsibilities were all handled to the best of his ability, Wei Wuxian would tease him over hypocrisy from the afterlife. And that’s just unacceptable.

[melongumi]

MDZS for the blorbo ask meme!

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

Being full of Headcanons and Opinions and Opinions on Headcanons and also, you know, multiple WIPS (and also a tendency to try to make every AU idea About Him sooner or later), I think I'm obligated to admit that this one is Wen Ning. Wangxian also, because I Am Their Target Audience.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

I have no idea... maybe Sizhui because Zhen Fanxing did a very good job making expressions that say “i am a Nice Young Man :)” A+ would pinch his cheeks like an obnoxious auntie and put too much food on his plate. Also, from a doylistic standpoint, am always down to see him go off to destroy people with dark magics or bangin’ qin solos or whatever else. A good boy.....

Also Fairy, who is after all a fat and also very fluffy dog.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

Wen Qing and Jiang Cheng....... my beloved blorbos-in-law. Outside of very specific scenarios, I find them underutilized in fandom. Also, when they do appear, that doesn’t guarantee that they’re being written with the full Jiang-Cheng-Wen-Qing-ness that they deserve >:0 !!! (also, the concentration of jc-bashing in newer fics on ao3 just keeps... rising. hey what the fuck. @ the responsible parties how does it feel to be history’s biggest cowards)

Honorable mention for Every dead wen and jiang that isn’t part of the ruling family, plus a particular shout-out to Wei Changze because canon characters also forget that he exists.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

Whenever I am looking for a reference in the original novel by searching for Wen Ning's name, I realize all over again how infrequently and briefly he actually appears in text despite spending basically the whole book within a mile or two of our heroes. Unfair.

Also, if anyone ever actually Did anything with Yanling Daoren, I would lose it tbh. [points] i wanna know what’s up with THIS asshole

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

Lan Xichen and Xue Yang, not because Lan Xichen is particularly controversial, but because these two are the most enjoyable to look at and think “you are the ultimate architect of this problem you are having. poor little meow meow”

Mind you--Lan Xichen isn’t the ultimate architect of his own problems, but he is the project manager so like. You know.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

If meow meows are for making their own problems, plinko is for outside problems being inflicted upon them. Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao are both so good for this in such very different ways. They are such stinky bastard men. Jin Guangyao is god's perfect killing machine but can't stop anyone from picking him up and messing his hair. Usually does make half of his own problems but makes sure they're everyone else's problem too. Honestly, the less in-control of a situation he is, the better off his long-term happiness is likely to be. That he hates every second of it when it's ultimately good for him? Funnie.

Nie Mingjue, meanwhile, needs to be shrunk in the wash and felted in the dryer. Its character building,

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

I don’t think saying Jin Guangshan for this is creative or funny, but like... it’s true.

Also Xiao Xingchen, but in his case because casting him as Castiel and literally sending him to literal superhell would, in fact, be hilarious. 🙏

[melongumi]

Whenever someone tries to slam on Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli, or Lan Wangji for not doing more to oppose the blackening of Wei Wuxian’s reputation in the period of time between the two Qiongqi Path incidents, I’m just so-- okay. Essay to follow.

FIRST, understand that even the people closest to Wei Wuxian lacked vital information about his circumstances and, therefore, lacked insight into his motives. Though they knew him best, his behavior and choices at that time gave them every cause to feel themselves suddenly strangers. 

With that out of the way, I really want to talk about the fact that Mo Dao Zu Shi is a work of fiction, and like most works of fiction, it has Themes. An obvious one is, of course, reputation-- and within that umbrella, how the confluence of class and orthodoxy work to create and maintain the in-group which has the privilege of deciding reputation and historical narrative. 

In MDZS, this in-group is composed of the righteous sects. 

Now here’s the thing about the role of orthodoxy in maintaining an in-group: it is possible for members of the group to change their group’s orthodox beliefs and behaviors. However, a member of the in-group who defies or acts outside of the existing orthodoxy without managing to change it is likely to be harshly corrected, or thrown out, or actively persecuted. 

In most cases, unless one is very smart or very lucky or has managed to get a significant amount of ideological clout on-side beforehand, one must enforce the group’s orthodoxy or else lose its protection and become its target. 

Consider also that in-groups and their members also have their own motives beyond simply maintaining orthodoxy, ideological unity, and social contract; motives like personal gain, or fear, or even simply expediency-so-I-can-go-home-and-work-on-my-hobbies-because-this-meeting-is-super-boring. Savvy individuals can pull on these secondary motives to maintain influence over otherwise neutral members of the group. 

So why is this relevant? 

I submit to the court that after the Sunshot Campaign, there were four great sects: Lanling Jin, Qinghe Nie, Gusu Lan, and Yunmeng Jiang. There are, in MDZS’ setting, also a great many other sects, all nominally independent of direct control by the great sects. This is relevant.

Yunmeng Jiang was all but destroyed. For years, it’s likely that other sects looked upon it and saw it for an opportunity to take its place at the top if it foundered. Its sect leader, Jiang Wanyin, was barely more than a child, and though he acquitted himself well in war, he had neither friends nor influence among the larger society of sect leadership. 

Gusu Lan, also hard-hit, was never as vulnerable-- Lan Qiren and other senior and elder members of the sect may have served to maintain social and political connections to the wider cultivation world, and Zewu-jun was one of the Sunshot Campaign’s two apparent generals who commanded other sects’ forces. However, Gusu Lan carries itself with a particular dignity and righteousness, exemplified by the strict codes of conduct laid out in its rules, which can render its cultivators outsiders to a more changeable, political social orthodoxy. It renders Gusu Lan a respected group, but one paradoxically taken less seriously: "Of course Gusu Lan would try to follow bright ideals, but the rest of us live on the ground-- be more practical, don’t you act like you’re too good for us.”

Qinghe Nie was better-off, and its sect leader was the other general of the Sunshot Campaign, but he was likewise young and likewise apparently without political connections beyond his sworn brotherhood with Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao. Plus, make no mistake, that sworn brotherhood served either to pull Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue in line with Lanling Jin, or else to signal to others that disagreements between Qinghe Nie and Lanling Jin were all due to personal drama as opposed to solid policy. In both cases, the end result was to accumulate influence within Lanling Jin. 

Lanling Jin, meanwhile, had Jin Guangshan: an adult and an experienced sect leader, he came out of the war with his resources undepleted, the political allies he’d been cultivating for decades, the turncoat formerly-Wen-allied sect leaders in his debt, and the other three great sects all on some form of social leash thanks to connections through one of his two acknowledged sons. 

I could turn this into a paper that would take a week or more to write and refine, or turn it into a fuckin’ research paper with historical primary sources to make parallels, but instead I will just say. 

Please understand that nothing the Jiang or Lan siblings could have done under canon conditions - in which I include their youth and inexperience, because sure, if they time-travelled that would affect what they’re capable of, but that’s not relevant here - would serve to wrest control of public opinion away from Jin Guangshan. Jin Guangshan had social authority, Jin Guangshan had a story prepared and everyone primed to accept it even before the first Qiongqi Path incident, and Jin Guangshan had lots of money and lots of friends. 

And to reiterate, these friends were sect leaders in their own right-- less prominent sects than Jiang or Lan or Nie, but they were fresh off a war that demonstrated how little that meant against unified action.

The Jiang and Lan siblings, meanwhile, had unanswered questions, misgivings without evidence sufficient to overcome the already-accepted narrative, and deep physical, political, and economic vulnerability. 

Yunmeng Jiang, especially, had they tried to protect Wei Wuxian (had they the confidence it was right to protect Wei Wuxian, with the secrets he was keeping and the distance he’d created), would be wrong even if they were right, simply because tearing them down would be, for the next most powerful sects, an opportunity to take their place-- nor, under MDZS’ particularly patriarchal rendition of a cultivation world, would Jiang Yanli be in any position to subvert Jin Guangshan’s social control. After her marriage, attempting to undermine him or publicly disagree would only be an unfilial action towards her father-in-law, making her easier to ignore at best or damaging her birth family’s position at worst. 

And then there’s Lan Wangji, who had No friends, and was the epitome of the Lan-pedestal-othering as well as ambivalence over Wei Wuxian’s actual righteousness (if not his inherent goodness), and relied on his brother (who had his own limitations and biases) to speak for him.

The people Wei Wuxian loved may have failed him, but make no mistake: it was not through lack of effort or care, but through their own unavoidable human limitations in understanding and agency as bound up in the cost of belonging to an in-group and benefiting from its (absolutely indispensable!) protection. 

And like... Wei Wuxian’s whole tragedy was that he likewise failed in most of his obligations and commitments for similar reasons. Society created a zero sum game, and Wei Wuxian tried to overcome that to shield both Yunmeng Jiang (for which he was, for a time, the primary protection) and an outgroup that could no longer protect themselves, and failed in an explosive and Shakespearean fashion because he was still just a (just one) person, and people are at the mercy of their own brains, and his was riddled with trauma and malnutrition and very justified paranoia. 

I need to stop here or else I’ll just end up going on tangents. 

[melongumi]

oh... when i watched the living dead I just. comfortably assumed that the wwx cameo was, like, just imaginary, you know, like a What Would Wei Wuxian Do kind of thing, 

but in the interest of not sleeping on Necromantic Soulbond Times,

[vividly imagines postcanon wen ning and wei wuxian figuring out how to make long-distance calls by meditating]

like wangxian are hanging out in the rabbit field in anticipation of leaving on another trip, and it’s like wwx: hold on, my a-ning senses are tingling wwx: [demonic dialup noises] wwx: Ẇ̸̬e̸̟̓ǹ̸ͅ ̶͙̚N̷̙̓ì̶͈n̷͎̈́g̷̺̃ ̴̻̃I̷͓͂'̶̳͛m̵̹̓ ̵̘̔h̴̲͒e̴̤̅r̷̟̓e̶̗̚!̸͈̆!̸̭͋!̶̬̓ ̷̡̏W̷̪̑ḧ̷͜ò̷͙'̶̨͠s̴̥͆ ̶̼͛b̴̘̏ú̷̪l̶̋͜l̴͙̍ỵ̸̓î̵̤ṋ̴͋ǵ̸̺ ̸͚̍y̴̠͊o̸̯͊u̶̲̐ ̶̽͜I̷̖̅'̶͔͘l̸̤̐l̷̼͆ ̵̠̈́k̷̫̄į̷͛l̸̫͊l̵͈͝ ̵̬̕ṯ̷̓h̸͉́e̸̲͌m̸̼͊

[melongumi]

to a point this makes me sad, b/c it assumes or at least goes really well with an unrequited sort of take on the relationship, but. 

can we talk about the ningxian necromancy bond. now and then i imagine onesided or apparently/effectively onesided wen ning/wei wuxian where wen ning is like: 

sincerely, reciprocity does not matter; Wei Wuxian lives under my bones and I feel him-- I carry him and every inch of his love with me each moment that I draw needless breath, I know him better than any beating heart ever could, I am his and he is mine in ways that make warm hands or words of love a pale shadow

-- anyway,

[melongumi]

For the writing meme: 27 and wangningxian 👀

27: meeting at a support group au i'm so ill-equipped for this prompt >>;

Wen Ning is very used to failing, and very used to being told it's because he's not trying hard enough, because he's obviously capable of more than this, better than this. If it were that easy--anyway,

So when he saw the pamphlets in the student union about a special discussion and study group that - well, the inside of the pamphlet talked about learning disabilities and giftedness and under-diagnosis of spectrum disorders, but the outside just said "You're already doing your best. Let us help."

And it's three weeks into the quarter, and he's already three assignments behind in his writing course, and the prospect of understanding from someone, anyone, is enough to drown out his usual apprehension of. Talking. To strangers. So.

Here he is, two days later, in the warrenlike basement of the student union in front of the room listed on the pamphlet: about to subject himself to the mortifying ordeal of being known at a support group for neurodivergent students, and what was he thinking? Does he even count? Probably he'll say two words and they'll kick him out for faking!

He's dragging his feet. Just a little. ...He's chickening out, actually. Just a--

Just at this moment, someone runs into him from behind.

"Shit! Sorry, I'm late and I wasn't looking where I was going."

The owner of the voice catches Wen Ning's elbow and straightens him up. It's a familiar voice, because Wen Ning hears this boy asking half a dozen questions per day in the morning biology lecture. He was handsome from halfway across the lecture hall. He's blinding up close. Oh no. "Say, do you know how to get to room 79? I'm Wei Ying, by the way."

As far as Wen Ning knows, room 79 is on the opposite end of the building. Handsome Biology Boy is already late; if he hears he's in the wrong area entirely, will he be upset? He should never be upset-- Wait, he introduced himself, is he expecting Wen Ning to introduce himself-- If Wen Ning guided him to room 79, he could spend time with him and keep him from getting lost and-- The support group! The pamphlet says they lock the door at five after the hour!

--Instead of replying, Wen Ning spins around and throws open the door.

Oh no there's another beautiful boy standing inside the door, paused midway through reaching for the lock--

*

[And that boy was Lan Wangji, who runs the support group, and wwx blew off his brother's intramural ultimate frisbee meeting to go to the support group, and the three of them become study partners. And more???]

[melongumi]

There’s more of this in my head (and in a discord chat), but: 

I think the modern (american) (low-stakes/comic relief) equivalent of being willing to risk your life and betray your sect for someone you met like once and mostly only know by reputation... is like,

Picture Wen Ning, on the, like, third string of his high school sportsball team--meeting Wei Wuxian just One Time at an away game and being like. Oh. He is very nice. ;u;

So he searches the name on his jersey on like, facebook, because if he were .2% braver he’d friend him on facebook and like, ask to hang out sometime. But he is not, so facebook-stalking it is. 

But wait! Wei Wuxian does not only play high school sportsball (in second string; because he’s mostly on the team to support Jiang Cheng and is always skipping practice)! He also... livestreams digital art, esports, and other games on twitch. And at least once mentioned this on his actual, irl, high schooler facebook page, because he fears neither god nor man nor his parents seeing that he draws anime pinups.

Reader, Wen Ning subscribes to that twitch channel. And reader, two years later when they’re in college, he has not spoken to Wei Wuxian again, but I guarantee that he’s become a highest-tier supporter on Patreon. 

Him and also Lan Wangji. Anonymously stanning a guy they could (please) just text, oh my god, may they both rest in pieces. 

(now with [part two])

[melongumi]

lrt on a significantly more petty note, because I’m incapable of not bringing academics into fandom (but I’m at least self-aware enough to be careful about bringing fandom into irl shit) the previous post is a large part of why I harp so hard on CQL’s “oh, but they aren’t those Wens” decision (and fanworks that roll with it). 

I don’t... have all my thoughts together for this at the moment, but: I disagree with the implication that the Wen Remnants deserved better only because ‘oh, but they’re the dafan wens, they were innocent’.

The Wen Remnants deserved better because they were human. Further, they deserved to be defended because they were defenseless; regardless of whether any of them were actually enemy cultivators - enemy soldiers - while the war was on, the war ended, and they were made defenseless and disenfranchised and forcefully relocated and could no longer protect themselves. 

And then the Jins took advantage of their vulnerability, and enslaved them, and turned their bodies into sites of political scapegoating, and just generally abrogated their human rights and committed what we, in nonfictional 2020, would call “Crimes Against Humanity”, but also “that shit that the U.S. and China (and probably other states) are definitely doing to various ‘acceptable’ targets right this second, actually”. A note, in the U.S. especially one of these ‘acceptable’ target groups is the (obscenely large) population of people incarcerated on criminal charges. 

This is all to say that: the Wen Remnants in the novel were Qishan Wen, and they did bear some level of responsibility for the crimes of the Qishan Wen sect, and what was done to them was nonetheless wrong. 

And you may, in real life, hear about similar situations; and you may be told that because the people suffering have committed some kind of crime, they therefore deserve it. But that will be a lie, and what’s being done to them is and will be wrong. 

Anyway support prison abolition. Peace ✌

[melongumi]

So about the Novel vs. Drama progression of the disenfranchisement and extermination of the Wen clan... I just want to shine a spotlight on a particular point of difference.

First, the drama shows Wens - the Dafan Wen actors in particular (don’t get me started on the concept of Dafan Wens) - being taken as prisoners of war while the Sunshot Campaign is still ongoing. Similarly, directly after the war, we’ve got Jin Guangyao performing under-the-table summary executions, and Jin Zixun performing blatant and unapologetic murder-massacres. 

I’m not saying that these things couldn’t have happened in the novel, but they didn’t necessarily; they weren’t mentioned. The presence of these events in the drama does serve to make the Jins... very clearly evil, which reduces WWX’s moral ambiguity (as the drama is wont to do) when he clashes with the Jins later on, but I’d like to point out how this attempt at reducing moral ambiguity also backfires, narratively. 

See, in the drama, we’re shown a discussion between LXC, NMJ, JGS, and JGY where they conclude that the Wen clan does have innocents who shouldn’t be persecuted. And then the Jin clan blatantly persecutes them. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji see Jin Zixun perpetrating a massacre. It makes the Jins unambiguously evil, but it increases moral culpability for everyone else involved, who cannot claim that they didn’t know this was happening, and cannot, having already agreed otherwise, claim that the people being persecuted are acceptable targets. 

In the novel, the persecution of the Wens takes on a very different character. We’re told that they’re “rounded into a small corner of Qishan, not even a thousandth of the territory [they] once owned... crammed into place and [struggling] to live”. In chapter 72, Wei Wuxian characterizes this place as a detention camp. There’s conflicting wording here in the exiled-rebels translation as to whether Jin Zixun retrieved Wen Ning and his group from the camp directly or ran into them elsewhere-- The former would imply that the Wen remnants were possibly being actively imprisoned there, with guards, while the latter could imply that they were “only” disenfranchised refugees left otherwise to their own devices. Wen Qing is away from the others when Wen Ning et al. are abducted, working as a doctor-- though this could be of her own volition or as forced labor; the translated novel doesn’t make it clear.

In either case, however, Jin Zixun makes use of plausible deniability at every point of his interaction with them. It’s natural and civilized, after all, to request the assistance of other cultivators in a night-hunt. Isn’t that so. :) But ah, these Wens, they really are arrogant despite their loss and our mercy, they don’t want to help. :) And now our night-hunt has failed because of them, how awful. And when we chastised [read: beat] them for sabotaging us, they started a fight [read: resisted]! Clearly these are no longer innocent refugees, they rejected our goodwill and have become aggressive. :) Since they have, it’s entirely appropriate that we drag them away now to pay for their crimes. :) As completely legal slave-labor. :)

Similarly, the progression from “well they can’t keep their lands” to “they need to be watched” to “we are entitled to subject them to hard labor, accidents can’t be helped” to “kill them all” -- represents some classic frog-boiling. It suggests that the other sects perhaps might not have allowed the Jins to jump straight to killing-all-Wens-via-profitable-slave-labor if they’d tried to do it blatantly, instead of quietly, slowly, with a justification prepared for each step.

Do I have to break down this whole sequence is grounded in immediate (universal) allegory to real-world political persecution and the narratives formed around it, especially in peri/postwar environments? Because it really is, and less cartoonishly and with less chill than the drama’s version of events. 

I, however, will have a little chill for now, and let the differences be taken as standard adaptational compression and moral disambiguation (however double-edged) rather than digging in to speculate on whether MXTX was trying to comment on anything in particular--because I, a white USAmerican currently writing in a non-academic context, would not know and could easily overstep. 

More safely, I could at least comment that (edit dec 10 2020: though it’s something I’m reading in rather than authorial intent) the smiley-ridden probable progression I’ve assigned to Jin Zixun above looks a lot like the whitewashed narratives pasted onto episodes of racist police violence in the U.S. The following frog-boiling progression looks like Other Things, which also apply to the U.S. and also, notably, several places and times in Europe.

So let’s leave it at, I understand but still regret the adaptational change from the nuanced (if fairly brief) portrayal of fairly universal patterns of political persecution in this bit of the novel. I thought it was very compelling. So there you go: spotlight shined.

[melongumi]

Very important saucy thoughts:

Wei Wuxian collecting salacious gossip about himself and bringing it home to laugh about because otherwise he would cry -- mostly with Wen Ning, b/c Wen Ning is willing to listen, and they probably walk the boundary lines on a regular basis or whatever I guess,

Until somewhere between an account of ghostly courtesans (“okay so I did used to summon some spirits to drink with me back at Lotus Pier, but it wasn’t like that--”) and abducted princesses (“Where did they even get that one? Wen Ning, do you think someone in town caught a glimpse of your pale complexion and made assumptions? Ha, but whoever heard of a princess as tall as you? You are pretty enough, though--”), Wen Ning hits his breaking point and is like: fuck it, and makes a move. 

A very small move, that’s willfully misinterpreted and which he doesn’t bother clarifying. I mean Wen Ning riffs a little on one of the stories in a leading fashion, and Wei Wuxian takes the bait.

They use the gossip and stories as verbal roleplay scenarios, is what I’m getting at here. And then maybe they... act them out a little,, in a fashion that is chaste but desperately sexy. 

They are behaving somewhat as if they don’t know what sex is but they do know... that vampire seduction tropes or whatever - in this case i guess they’re switching off playing at being an abducted princess - are Highly Interesting,,

Probably they do end up kissing, but relationship progress here is... minor. We’re staying canon-compliant so far, y’got me? So then canon happens. And then postcanon happens.

And Wei Wuxian has been travelling with Lan Wangji, and Wen Ning has been travelling with Lan Sizhui, and when they all return to Gusu they have traditional reunion activities, such as talking.

So Sizhui gets hugs, but then Sizhui runs off to catch up with his friends first. So it’s Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, and Wen Ning at a table sharing stories from the road. And it starts with accounts of night hunts, of course-- or funny anecdotes about Sizhui making a teenaged miscalculation, or Wen Ning knocking over a tree, or some innkeeper’s wife mortifying Lan Wangji with very obvious flirting, 

But then Wei Wuxian brings up hearing another one of those tall tales about himself. And, force of habit, Wen Ning riffs on it. And then, force of habit, Wei Wuxian reciprocates and escalates with a morbid naughty joke. 

And suddenly there’s a lot of UST at this table, and Lan Wangji is like. I Am Looking. I Am Looking Lasciviously.

anyway a week later a very flustered Ghost General (wn) is kidnapping a poor helpless maiden (wwx) for his Dread Master-- when ah! Salvation! A righteous cultivator (lwj)! Please righteous cultivator, rescue me, I’ll do anything. Anything, says the cultivator. The maiden trembles unconvincingly from where he’s thrown over the Ghost General’s shoulder. Oh yes, the maiden says, anything at all.

ANYWAY And Then They All Bang. You kind of get the notion that they’ve been doing this all week in various switchy combinations and show no signs of stopping, it’s great. :)