God Jin Guangyao’s Fucking Face When They Announce Zewu Jun At The Post War Celebration At Nightless

When I first started MDZS I had a theory that the fierce corpse they were piecing together was WWX's original body and it had been kept and experimented on by some wannabe demonic cultivators hoping to figure out how he was so powerful.

And I'm thinking about it again.

Imagine WWX, fresh from whatever afterlife his soul was in, ready to just fulfill the requirements of the spell that brought him back then lay low and spend the rest of his new life in peace. That plan immediately gets thrown off course by a cursed hand and LWJ showing up. He is now, through circumstance and his own inability to Let Things Go, dragged into this mystery of finding out who this fierce corpse is and why it's here.

And at some point he realizes he recognizes those hands. He knows those marks. He remembers those calluses.

And he has to deal with the fact that the betrayal and rage fueling it is HIS betrayal and rage. All the emotions that he set aside to stay focused on keeping himself and the Wen remnants alive for as long as possible are now right in front of him and impossible to ignore any longer.

When does LWJ put it together? After WWX? At the same time? It would be hilarious and tragic if LWJ realized first and assumed WWX already knew so he didn't say anything.

No idea how this would fit into the whole thing with NMJ and JGY. I could see a story getting away with NHS still getting involved for WWX (I don't care what anyone else says, they were FRIENDS), but is NMJ dead? Did he die the same way? Is he alive and just hanging around the background this time? Is he now a SECOND Fierce corpse they have to deal with? I can't imagine him dying the way he did and NOT becoming a fierce corpse.

It's been too long since I've read canon to dig into the details but this idea has been hanging around in the back of my head ever since I first read it. Anyone else thought the fierce corpse was WWX? I can't be the only one.

modern au wei wuxian would have a career sorta like bridgit mendler, super successful child star turned weirdly well adjusted tiktok star (everyone say ty to lwj and wq for the well adjusted part), and he's a household name for his celebrity activities, but if you google him the first thing that comes up is his absolutely stacked linkedin profile - ivys all the way down and a litany of charities and non-profits that he either founded or chairs - followed by article after article about the life saving world changing research he's headed, and you (average citizen of this AU) are just like "i just saw him doing a couples dance trend on tiktok and wanted to see if he was married when did wei wuxian from like 5 DCOMs get a phd in physics and start 3 non-profits???"

Mdzs as a d&d game.

Dm: You are dropped into the Burial Mounds

Wwx: Can I survive this?

Dm: Make a constitution roll

Wwx: Nat 20

Dm: Alright, you survive. Now tell me how

Jc: I try to prove that it's Wei Wuxian

Dm: Roll for perception and charisma

Jc: 15 and 3

Dm: While there is almost no doubt in your mind that Mo Xuanyu is actually Wei Wuxian, you have no real means to prove it. You have to let the group leave

Lwj: I drag Wei Ying to the inn

Wwx: Hey! How come he gets to know who I am without a perception check?

Dm: Because you practically told him

Lwj: I would like to seduce Wei Ying

Dm: Roll for charisma

Lwj: 18

Dm: Alright. You tell Wei Wuxian in as simple terms as your drunk self can manage, how much he means to you. Wei Wuxian, roll for perception

Wwx: My dice just rolled off the table and into the trash

Dm: Unfortunately, the love of your life is stupid

I think a lot of characters in mdzs are written to be foils of wei wuxian, you know, lan wangji, xue yang, jin guangyao, wen chao, jiang cheng, the list could keep going. BUT in contrast to these contrasts, wen ning is wei wuxian's parallel.

They're both a talented child who, under the prejudices of society, become corpses of themselves, yet despite it all are able to persist because of love and understanding. Of course, the corpse thing is more figurative in the case of wei wuxian if we look at him the moments before during and after nightless city. Where he is entirely the yiling patriarch society lauds him to be. Which is just a superficial inauthentic shell of who we know wei ying is. And then he actually dies, so boom, there's your corpse (except 404 corpse not found, my point still stands).

And idk, I think one of the best parts of mdzs is that any of the characters could be the main character. Any of these characters could be the main pov.

But overall, while wei wuxian's foils illuminate his bright sides, his parallels, like wen ning, just make his tragedies that much darker. It's like, wei wuxian, isn't just solely persecuted, this persecution of hope and brightness is an epidemic. And that's so fucked to recognize and so hot of mxtx's brain to deliver as a theme.

even if he was objectively guilty of every single crime levelled at him at any point in the narrative, the cumulative influence of jin guangyao's time as a spy for the sunshot forces during the war and his tenure as xiandu is still orders of magnitude more substantive, and positive, than anything else accomplished by any other named character in the text.

even if you believe he did every single foul thing he is accused of doing, he still saved the life of the gusu lan heir and ensured irreplaceable sect knowledge wasn't lost during the razing of the cloud recesses. he still killed literal tyrant and megalomaniac wen ruohan and ended a war. he still pushed through his watchtower program, which saved countless commoners' lives, and rooted out corruption in jinlintai to the point that no jin sect disciple would ever think about accepting a bribe in the city. he is the reason why wangxian get to fuck nasty on every surface of the cloud recesses post-canon--because jin guangyao used his influence to ensure the cloud recesses were rebuilt. he is the one who pulled nie huaisang's hands out of the fire after nie mingjue set all of his precious belongings on fire. he's the one who arranged to have those burn wounds tended to. he still built a temple in his mother's image and interred her body beneath guanyin so that all those prayers would go to meng shi, to grant her a better afterlife. he still gave fairy to jin ling.

even with the least charitable, worst faith interpretation of his character, these things remain true.

Jiang Cheng: Go to hell!

Lan Zhan: Can I please leave your home before you invite me back in?

Also

Jiang Cheng: If I could go back in time, I'd find child Mo Xuanyu. And I'd give him to a loving family

Wei Wuxian: Aww that's so sweet!

Jiang Cheng: So that he'd never have a reason to resurrect you, and you'd be stuck in the body of someone ugly instead!

Wei Wuxian: aww

Also also

Jiang Cheng: YOU DEFLOWERED MY BABY BROTHER!

Wei Wuxian: I'm older than-

Jiang Cheng: NO ONE ASKED YOU!

Lan Zhan: *throws a bag of gold at jc's head*

Jiang Cheng: THE FUCK-

Lan Zhan: For Wei Ying's virtue

Jiang Cheng: YOU THINK ONE BAG OF GOLD IS ENOUGH TO MAKE UP FOR-

Lan Zhan: *throws another bag of gold*

Jiang Cheng: HOW MANY OF THESE DO YOU HAVE!?

Lan Zhan: How much do I need to buy your silence?

Lan Wangji heard Beyoncé sing “If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it” and took it to heart

Local deity Yiling Laozu was not prepared for such a short engagement💀

merji and foxxian with a-yuan for @mdzs-rabbithole !!

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small but with big dreams 🥺🤏🏻

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