We're In The Trenches Man

Nope I totally get your point! I think the only sect leader who was willing to call arh out was nmj and tbh... even his reason for doing so is really more cause his dad was killed and not because wrh was yk... slaughtering smaller clans

Am I missing something or is Yu Ziyuan half at fault for the Lotus Pier Massacre? I'm not talking about beating Wang Lingjiao up (understandable). But right before that, beating Wei Wuxian up to the point where he can barely move. And then when she starts beating up WLJ and orders her dead, WLJ escapes past WWX. He totally could've stopped her from setting off that signal flare if he hadn't been whipped with Zidian within an inch of his life.

I know there were a lot of factors and even if she hadn't beaten WWX up to the point where he couldn't do anything, or even if she grit her teeth and bowed down to WLJ (and subsequently cut off his hand), they probably would've found another excuse. But YZY's actions really didn't help.

God you worded my thoughts beautifully, 100% agreed.

Hii! I hope you are having a good day! I have a question concerning Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s righteousness. Also I think this might also be a hot take? Many people have said that Wangxian are the only morally upright people in the novel, but in Lan Wangji’s case that's only when he matured yes?

I'm not trying to say Lan Wangji is not righteous, he is! He is better than most of the cultivators in the gentry, that's how he got his title after all. I'm just confused because I have seen people claiming that he is just as good as Wei Wuxian (before Wei Wuxian's death).

If Lan Wangji really was as good as Wei Wuxian that time. Why didn't he put the same effort in helping the Wen remnants the same way Wei Wuxian did? Why didn't he go and confirm whether or not the Wen remnants really were being unjustly abused?

Wei Wuxian gave up his reputation, his clan, his comfort, and nearly everything to save the Wen remnants. And I'm sorry to say this (I'm not trying to hate, I'm just stating facts), Lan Wangji didn't.

My problem isn't with Lan Wangji (I adore him). My problem is people saying to say that Lan Wangji was as righteous as Wei Wuxian pre-Wei Wuxian death. Yes, Lan Wangji did try to help Wei Wuxian (defending Wei Wuxian several times in the cultivation meetings, and supporting Mianmian, helping Wen Ning when he was just awakened). But my problem is when people equate those actions to what Wei Wuxian did with the Wen remnants. Lan Wangji at that time did not put in the same effort to help the Wen remnants just as Wei Wuxian did. That's what I'm trying to say. Lan Wangji pre-Wei Wuxian was still maturing, he has some hesitationto help the Wen remnants back then, he was not as good as Wei Wuxian back then. BUT Lan Wangji IS as good as Wei Wuxian post-Wei Wuxian death. He learned from his mistakes, and acted with more conviction to do the right thing.

Also another question, what made Lan Wangji hesitate to help Wei Wuxian all that much in the past (Wen remnants case)? Was it because of his family and clan? Or was it some other factor? Was he hindered in some way?

What do you think about this?

Hi anon, I’m not really recovered enough to do meta, but you caught me in a good mood, so I’ll give you some answers anyway.

First off I think that take that literally only Wangxian are morally upright is a liiiiittle reductionist, because that erases for example Mianmian and the juniors and Wen Qing and Wen Ning and a-Qing and Xiao Xingchen, all of whom are people who we know to have strong morals and the fortitude to do the right thing in the face of loud opposition and societal disapproval. But also I think that while Lan Wangji’s morality is much more apparent in the present, it is consistently strong throughout the entire novel. He just doesn’t shout about it.

First off, given the Wen Remnants claim, Wei Wuxian leaves right from the banquet to go chase them down, which is something he can do without incurring greater societal rancor because he was not a guest at the banquet. Lan Wangji is a guest and both host and guests do have rules and expectations to follow that would make it much more difficult for him to chase after Wei Wuxian without bringing down ire upon the Lan too. Remember, at this time in the book, the Lan Clan is still rebuilding their home that was burnt down with the help of the Jin, they are not quite as free to do as they please as the Jiang are. By the time he would have been able to get there, Wei Wuxian would have already spirited away the Wen from Qiongqi Path, meaning there’d be nothing for him to see. In addition it’s not as if he’s doing nothing at the banquet, he speaks in defense of Wei Wuxian both against the Jin and his own family, which is not doing nothing by any means. He’s fighting on different battlegrounds because he and Wei Wuxian are in different positions.

As for your latter questions, I wonder if you’ve ever heard of the concept attacking on two fronts? Yes, Wei Wuxian sacrificed everything to protect the Wen and give them time, but for all of that sacrifice, it’s doing nothing to stop the roar of the mob. He is an imposing figure to be sure, but he is one man and they are many. In addition, he is mostly staying in one place and working on keeping them alive, meaning that while the Wen are safe, everyone else who is not a cultivator is still having to deal with the hypocrisy of the cultivation world alone, which is where Lan Wangji, who appears wherever chaos is and helps people with their problems however small they seem. In addition to that, he is also continually speaking out at meetings on Wei Wuxian and the Wens’ behalf, we see him do this at the same meeting as Mianmian leaving her clan and we know he spoke up other times from when he and Wen Ning chat on the boat. Just because he wasn’t there in the burial mounds doesn’t mean he wasn’t doing anything and his morality was more questionable, it means that he was fighting those battles on other fronts - fronts where Wei Wuxian could not go, where Lan Wangji does have more power because he is a clan heir, because he is Hanguang-jun, because he is someone noble and strong willed enough to stand up to the bloodthirsty mob again and again and keep shouting back.

Also anon, the reason why Lan Wangji hesitated to “help” Wei Wuxian that much in the past (which he doesn’t, he gets rebuffed by Wei Wuxian half the times when he tries to help and successfully gets to help the other times) comes mostly down to Phoenix Mountain, where he made a significant, grievous error and crossed lines he should not have crossed with Wei Wuxian and that is what shakes up his confidence in helping Wei Wuxian for a while. He’s ashamed of himself for acting the way he did and wronging Wei Wuxian in his actions and it is that dissonance between his wants to be moral and his wants with Wei Wuxian that rattle and force him to spend time rectifying things. He keeps his distance and is cautious and careful with Wei Wuxian because the last time he did what he wanted heedless of what Wei Wuxian wanted, he ended up pinning him to a tree while blindfolded and forcing a kiss on him. That isn’t something that he is taking lightly, and it is clear that it has shaken him to the core.

Really, what I would argue that the biggest difference in Lan Wangji pre and post thirteen years is where he’s just done with trying to win by the rules the cultivation world sets. He’s seen what happens when you follow those rules, how even when you stand up to them in the ways they claim to respect that their words mean nothing, and he won’t give them the benefit of the doubt any longer. Which is something that can only come with maturity and is also something that Wei Wuxian learned in that same time span, Wei Wuxian never turned the defenses he’d made for the Burial Mounds so that they would respond to Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Cheng brought a siege on him.

The answer I have for you anon, is that they both have been equally moral in their youths and more so as adults because they are both learning and growing and developing that core within them as they grow. Be careful not to conflate sacrifice with morality, while it can indeed be a sign of great morals, it is not the only way such morals can be shown, and to suggest that Lan Wangji’s actions - helping others who still need his aid when the Wen are being taken care of by Wei Wuxian, speaking out on their defense, rescuing Wei Wuxian and taking him back to the burial mounds after the events of nightless city, and then surviving and living to save Wen Yuan and to raise him and other children so that they will not make the mistakes their elders did - are less moral because he gave up less than his life to do so is something that I find distasteful indeed.

Can't believe this only has 200 smth notes, this is Renaissance level art my gosh.

On the other hands AHH LWJ I LOVE THIS SO MUCH SBWJXHX. Happy late birthday 🎂.

quick little thing for my babygirl’s birthday 🎂

OMG?! I need more I desperately need to see wangxian in ur arcane au ahhhhhhhh

Old mdzs arcane sketch 2

wei wuxian isn't sin-free either. that's the point. no one in mdzs is. the purity police mentality is why so many in the fandom turned their backs on wangxian. wei wuxian is not a perfect uwu little angel. he committed more atrocities than jin guangyao

???????????????????????????????

How to say you missed the point without saying you missed the point.

Anyway, sorry, I'll stop joking around. Let's take this bit by bit, shall we?

Not sure what you mean by "pure" and "sin". I don't know enough about Buddhism or Chinese culture in general, so I won't speek much on this matter. (Yet, I'm pretty sure the book wasn't written with Christianity in mind🙃). Anyway, making mistakes doesn't make you "bad". Making mistakes is what makes us human and it doesn't make you morally "grey" or "bad" and especially not when you regret them:

He was only stating a simple fact calmly, but the cultivator felt as if he was scorned, fuming, “What do you think we’re talking about here? How could there be bargaining for debts of blood?”

Wei WuXian, “It’s not that I want to bargain about such a thing, but that I don’t want my charges to be doubled just because of some words from another. I won’t shoulder what I didn’t do.”

ExR ch. 79

Note that he said that he won't shoulder what he didn't do, not that he won't shoulder anything at all.

Finally, Wei WuXian spoke up. He said, “Then what do you want me to do?”

Fang MengChen paused in surprise. Wei WuXian, “Then what do you want? Nothing but my miserable death to soothe your own hatred?” He pointed at Yi WeiChun, who lay passed out among the crowd, “He’s missing a leg, while I was cut into pieces; you lost your parents, while my family had long since been gone. I’m a dog who was chased out of its home. I’ve never even seen the ashes of my parents.”

Wei WuXian, “Or do you hate the Wen Sect’s remnants? The Wen Sect remnants that you speak of already died once, thirteen years ago. And right now, just then, for my sake, for your sake, they died once again. This time, they’ve all become ashes.” He continued, “Let me ask you—just what else do you want me to do?”

[...]

Wei WuXian, “Nobody told you to forgive me. The things I did, not only do you remember them, I remember them too. You won’t forget them, and they’ll stay even longer in my mind!”

ExR ch. 82

Wei Wuxian's goodness shouldn't be debated. All his actions were justified. He was never the initiator. Let me repeat myself: Who attacked whom first? Who massacred Wei Wuxian's home? Who send the Wen remnants, who lived peacefully on a small piece of land that was given to them by the winners, to the work camps where they were tortured?

As for the remnants of the Wen Sect, they were herded into a small corner of Qishan, not even a thousandth the territory it onced owned. They were crammed into the place and struggled to live.

ExR ch. 72

Who ambushed whom on Qiongqi path? Who went on offensive because he grew up with his cousin and didn't like Wei Wuxian anyway? Who promised to let the matter go if Wen Qing and Wen Ning turned themselves over? Who went back on that promise? Who gathered 3000 cultivators to kill 50 innocent people? Who killed those innocents?

"He committed more atrocities than Jin Guangyao"

...

...

I recommend you to read the extra Villainous Friends. It's a real eye-opener.

Just then, two disciples from the Jin Clan of Lanling dragged over a cultivator with disheveled hair.

"Weren't you going to refine a new set of fierce corpses?" Jin Guangyao said. "As it happens, I've brought materials for you."

[...]

A young girl and boy, both trussed with rope, kneeled on the ground and shouted miserably to He Su.

"Ge!"

He Su was stunned. His face blanched white as paper. "Jin Guangyao! What do you mean by this?! You can just kill me. Why implicate my entire clan?!"

[...]

Jin Guangyao shot him a glance, then turned back around and said in an even-tempered tone, "You can't say that. The He Clan of Tingshan used the full force of its power to start an uprising and plot to assassinate Sect Leader Jin. All of you were caught red-handed. How can you call this 'no reason'?"

A number of the captives cried out, "Ge! He's lying! We didn't. We really didn't!"

"What a crock of shit!" He Su spat. "Open your damn eyes and take a good look around! There's a nine-year-old child here, and elders who can't even walk! What uprising could they start?! And why would they assassinate your father out of the blue?!"

[...]

However, no one here would listen to his defense. Sitting before him were two vicious villains who already considered him a dead man and were enjoying the sight of his last-ditch struggle. Jin Guangyao leaned back with a smile and waved.

"Gag him. Go on, gag him."

Wei Wuxian never killed his father, brother, son, wife and then pretended that he had no choice. Wei Wuxian didn't slaughter a whole clan just because they were standing in his way and he saw them as annoyance. Wei Wuxian was never besties with other mass murderers (Xue Yang).

I wanted to argue that the only thing that made Jin Guangyao better than Jin Guangshan was that he had never forced himself on women... but then I remembered how Jin Guangshan died...

SiSi, “The middle-aged man wanted to shout and struggle, but his body was weak. The boy who led us inside opened the door again, grinning as he dragged him onto the bed again and tied him up with a rope, stepping on his head. He told us, carry on, don’t stop even when he’s dead. Have any of us been through such a situation before? We were scared half-dead, but we didn’t dare disobey. We had to continue. At the twelfth or eleventh round, that sister suddenly screamed, saying that he really was dead. I went over and checked. He’d indeed kicked the bucket, but the person behind the curtain said, didn’t you hear me? Don’t stop even when he’s dead!”

ExR ch. 85

Don't spoil Wei Wuxian's good name by comparing him to the likes of Jin Guangyao!

+ bonus:

"You little hooligan," Jin Guangyao said with a laugh. "Wreck stalls if that's what you want. You can burn down the entire street, for all I care, as long as you mind two things—don't wear the Sparks Amidst Snow uniform, and keep your face hidden. Don't let anyone find the culprit and put me on the spot."

Btw, the excerpts from Villainous Friends were taken from Seven Seas translation.

My second prompt for the MDZS Gotcha for Gaza event, requested by bianca_boop on twitter! Jian Yanli/transwoman Jin Zixuan. I chose that moment of gender euphoria when you finally look like yourself!

Every once a while Wen Qings death and just the general nightless city ordeal haunts me, because imagine being Wen Qing and your brothers accidentally kill the heir of the clan that's been itching for an excuse to stage an official attack on your family, You know time is limited, But the Jins send an ultimatum " give your life up for your family and we'll leave you alone", you accept of course (you always knew you were never going to make it that far anyway, atleast your family would get an extended chance) so you burn, burn as people cheer around you including a man who owes you and your family a debt greater than any other (Jc) But even than you die at peace knowing your family would have a chance, knowing the man you now consider a brother would have a chance.

But that doesn't happen either way, Your whole family dies except one, the man you consider a brother gets supposedly thorn to shreds and the only living family member whom is a child is in the care of a bedridden man (who's bedridden for defending you family in the first place)

I feel like What happened with the Wen remnants really gets idk ignored by the fandom a bit, maybe not ignored but like it's definitely softened up, I personally don't believe that Wen Qing genuinely believed the Jins would keep their promise of peace Wen Qing is to smart to fall for their lies, though I feel she could've deceived herself in a moment of total desperation.

A lan wangji who covers his ears at sudden loud sounds, A wei wuxian that may or may not break your arm if you try to sneak up on him from behind (Less you're lwj ofc), A Wen Ning that fills up Wen yuans plate much more than needed (Wen Yuan tries his best to eat it all either way)

how it feels to have no social media presence as an artist