Someone On Twitter Said Imagine What S2 Jayce Would Give To Talk To S1 Viktor Just One More Time. And

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng’s (Lack of) Brotherhood

In fanfiction, it is extremely frequent to see Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng refer to one another as “brother”, either in dialogue, or described as such through the narrative. This always struck me as hitting the wrong note, because in the actual narrative of Mo Dao Zu Shi there is not a single instance where the word “brother” is used to refer to one another, not even once.

Yet it is obvious why fanfics go there. It does fittingly describe the nature of their relationship. Wei Wuxian was brought back to Yunmeng by Jiang Fengmian to be raised by him in a way that looks much more like an adoption than anything. It is probable that the main reason that he didn’t formally adopt Wei Wuxian was because Yu Ziyuan would never have stood by it. Despite her opposition and her worry that Wei Wuxian might usurp Jiang Cheng’s place as heir to the sect, it is obvious that Wei Wuxian wasn’t treated as a servant (as the son of a servant) or as a simple disciple. He was part of the family unit in more ways than not, and they grew up close and their relationship displayed a kind of intimacy and rivalry that is typical of brotherhood.

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bro cmon a few bounces on it never hurt a friendship

full on my ao3 and bsky

ok so your first problem was assuming mdzs is a story where Good People are Rewarded and Bad People are Punished.

your second problem was assuming that MXTX—who goes out of her way to showcase unresolved, tragic, undeserved endings in all of her works—would ever write a story with such a shallow notion of “deserving.”

the only reason wangxian makes it out unscathed is because they’re literally the protagonists. authorial intent and plot armor ensure their happy ending. that’s it.

rolic:

For Nemesi, who was deliciously specific in her request. I hope this met your expectations bbe!

I only drew some out of those reqs from last time, I will probably post them soon, however I am determined to do all of them, and eventually draw them when I have time, so please bear with me with patience!

And sorry for the absence, finals were coming up, but after my last exam on Thursday, you’ll probably see me on here more often.

hiii! for the ask game, an au where jc gets de-aged post-canon to his freshly traumatized 17 year old self? playing happy family in cloud recesses, wwx is brutally pulled out of his ‘the past is in the past’ bubble when he finds out. for extra knives, maybe wn tells him

1. I think it should be JL, and not WN, who tells WWX. JL is invested in JC (and in JC and WWX’s relationship)! WN is mostly invested in #getwreckedSLJ.

WWX doesn't really understand what JL expects of him - WWX’s heart leaped when he understood the content of JL’s letter, and his belly twisted as though he was going to be sick, but he managed to calm down enough to write a reassuring letter back to JL. (Surely that was what JL expected, right?) WWX had to sit on his own hands to keep from doing something stupid like grabbing a sword and flying off, and then he had to ask to LWJ to distract him, because it keeps buzzing, buzzing under his skin.

There's no new letter from JL. WWX forces himself to think it means everything went back to normal. And makes himself distracted (he loves his husband!) before his mind trips down the path of what if not. (JL wouldn't write then. He'd show up.)

2. There’s no second letter but JL shows up. WWX, who's been thinking that there was no reason for JL to come but if things had gone worst with JC, doesn't know what he looks like when he sees JL and doesn't really register the sound of people sliding their swords out.

“You have to come, why didn't you come! I had to leave jiujiu because you weren't coming, and I'm going to have to return to Jinlintai once I’ve brought you back, so grab your things, shibo. Oh, you don't need to take much, LP will put you up with what you need. What matters is going back so jiujiu can see you.”

JC is alive. JC is alive. Once the news break through the dull rushing sound in WWX’s ears, tension he didn't know had frozen his body seeps away.

The Jin disciple accompanying JL puts his sword away, under the misapprehension that WWX isn't ready to leave right away. LWJ says WWX’s name and presses his arm, and WWX nods fiercely. No time to waste, is there? Now JC wants him there.

3. There’s a disciple of YMJ as a welcoming committee when they fly down, or maybe two; WWX doesn't pay attention, he leaves JL and LWJ to deal with them - “hey, wait!” JL yelps, “do you even know where you’re going?”

WWX’s feet slow, stop. LP is changed. WWX isn't even sure JC left the infirmary where it once was.

JL catches up with an annoyed, worried huff. He sounds just like JC. “Here, this way.”

4. JC looks– JC looks.

WWX’s legs give up from under him.

JC looks at him with an intense frown, features almost twisted in desperation - WWX’s name on his lips. WWX scrambles on the ground, knees banging on the polished wood, fingers feverishly untangled as he reaches for the long-lost shape of WWX’s shidi, crumpled as discarded hopes, slight as a memory.

“You– why are you here?” JC's words fall like stones on WWX’s bones before WWX can reassure himself JC’s real. “They told me you live in Gusu. You don't even look like yourself, why did you come back?”

How like JC! One thousand words to cut through WWX like one thousand blades. WWX ignores him, fists his hands in JC's robes, presses his face against JC’s thighs. He needs to feel the warmth of JC’s body, make sure he’s not a ghost, not a dream.

JC's hand on his shoulder, shaking. WWX is suddenly reminded of JC’s hands pushing him down, this same JC throttling him. It feels like the last time they touched, did JC ever touch him after that, did WWX let him?

5. “I’ll fix it – I promise, JC, I’ll make it right,” WWX breathes, recklessly, helplessly. How easy it is to fall back into these old, dizzying habits!

JC’s eyes are full of shattered distrust and cloudy hopes, like he’s been told WWX lies, like he still believes WWX first.

🐿️⚜️

The meme

it obviously proves that it's very dangerous for the two of them to be together lol

'replacing jc in someone's affection' I am crying! wwx doesn't do it once but twice! It's fascinating! Also, this makes me understand why some people, reading the novel, come to the conclusion that wwx doesn't care anymore about jc. Yeah, it's a valid interpretation!

Listen, I just rotated, and rotated, and rotated this scenario (—because, like, both child and adult Wei Wuxian are sincerely in need of support and affection, but I think receiving it as a child while it was withheld from someone he loved, what might have seemed like taking it away from someone who also needed it, also contributed to his boundary problems and self-sacrificial tendencies and eventual resentment—like he needs it but it hurts someone he loves deeply when he gets it but he still needs it, how can he reconcile these conflicting truths?? OK I will stop now—) and, uh, have a tiny little sketch of that zhanchengxian fic concept below, with which I will exorcise my sad past chengxian/past zhancheng/current wangxian thoughts.

It was going to be a perfect triple triple drabble but I needed 80 more words in the centre section to describe Jiang Cheng's tears. You know how it is.

Pursued by Lesser Ghosts

At first he was busy and grateful for it.

Then, Jin Ling settled, elders cowed, sect in order, Jiang Cheng was forced to returned to Lotus Pier. Empty, now.

His sect ran as it always did. He slept poorly. He dreamed often. He walked up and down the pier at night, pursued by lesser ghosts, echoes of people who were alive, just gone. His own life closed around him as tight as any noose, one long merciless sequence of work, sleep, work.

He had a minor qi deviation.

“Go back to dual cultivation,” said the doctor.

“That’s no longer possible,” he said.

The doctor looked up. When Jiang Cheng didn’t say anything else, she said, “Well. Come here for acupuncture once a week. Consider visiting Jin Ling.”

Relax, she didn’t bother to say.

Jiang Ping, his one surviving cousin, took tea with him, and said: “I know things have been stressful. Perhaps you would consider marriage now?”

“I didn’t think marriage was relaxing,” said Jiang Cheng, drily.

“It can be. After everything, well… it’s nice to have someone there.” Jiang Ping looked up, thinking. “Having someone there and working a lot. I don’t think it’s possible for Sect Leader to work harder, so you’ll have to try the other thing.”

Jiang Cheng let out a snort despite himself. Jiang Ping grinned at him.

He could get married, he supposed. What was there to prevent him?

He didn’t call for a matchmaker. He worked harder, kept himself so busy he could hardly think, but at night, laying in his bed, he ached with loneliness before sleep. And in sleep, he saw them, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian both, invariably walking away from him, hand in hand.

Sometimes he was silent; sometimes he called to them. It didn’t matter. They never turned around.

-

In Wei Wuxian’s dream, it was high summer, air as thick as syrup, and he was lying under the trees along the riverbank with his head in Jiang Cheng’s lap.

Above him, Jiang Cheng was eating tanghulu. Playfully, Wei Wuxian opened his mouth like a baby bird, and Jiang Cheng, rolling his eyes, took a piece of fruit and fed it to him, red and almost glowing. His index finger brushed against Wei Wuxian’s mouth.

Sometimes, he dreamed and he didn’t know whether it was just a dream or a fragment of a memory. He thought this might have happened—he faintly remembered begging Jiang Cheng to let him rest his head in his lap, across his narrow, muscled thighs.

Suddenly it was night, and Jiang Cheng was gone.

“Jiang Cheng?” called Wei Wuxian, and found his voice was a child’s voice, high-pitched and nervous. “Jiang Cheng?”

He rushed through Lotus Pier, now dark and empty, towards Jiang Cheng’s room. Then, in the way of dreams, Jiang Cheng was in front of him, a child again, too, face swollen with tears as he wept alone on the pier.

Wei Wuxian froze, panicked.

Someone picked him up; Uncle Jiang had appeared. But instead of saying anything, he turned and walked away. “Uncle Jiang,” Wei Wuxian whispered, but Jiang Fengmian didn’t respond.

All Wei Wuxian could do was look over Uncle Jiang’s shoulder at Jiang Cheng, at his crumpled, sobbing face. You don’t understand, he thought, suddenly, I love you but I need this, I need it, I need it.

That face changed again, blurred into Jiang Cheng's adult face, still weeping as he knelt on the pier. And then the strong arms around him weren’t Uncle Jiang’s but Lan Zhan’s, holding him tight in a bridal carry, taking him away as he squirmed to look back, to not look away from Jiang Cheng’s face, they had been so happy only a moment ago—

Wei Wuxian woke late, his face wet. Went to look for a handkerchief. Opened a drawer he hadn’t looked in before to find: two purple hair ribbons. An open jar of salve, carved with the insignia of a well-known Yunmeng herbalist. And a lavender handkerchief, embroidered with a little frog. Wei Wuxian traced it gently with his thumb.

-

The day was a little crisp, but bright and beautiful. Lan Wangji had risen at the appointed time, eaten breakfast serenely with the sect, and taught some advanced guqin lessons. Lan Sizhui was coming along beautifully, playing more delicate and precise every day, a delight to teach.

Everything was just as it should be in the Cloud Recesses, but Lan Wangji was still somehow uneasy.

He had gained everything he had dreamed of as a teenager, in one bewildering fell swoop. His life had been overturned, but for the better, the man he had wanted for so long delivered to him on a silver platter. He was unbelievably lucky.

Of course, he grieved what had happened to his brother. Lan Xichen deserved only good things. It was bitter to find out someone you had loved so deeply had deceived you—had failed you—had abandoned you.

But with the exception of that dark spot, the suffering and absence of his brother, his life was everything he had ever asked for, wasn’t it? A pristine life, on the surface.

If there was a dark shadow underneath, the ripple of something passing through a lake on a sunny day—something slipping out of an incautious hand, lost to the water—that too was life, wasn’t it?

He had never been so happy in his life. He had never before been so happy in his life, as he had once imagined it.

He averted his eyes from that shadow.

Until, one day, he returned home, and found Wei Ying, sitting at the room’s low table, holding a handkerchief in one hand. Remnants of a different life that had collected in his home. No—that he had kept. Gripped tightly.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying said, brightly, face stretched in a brittle smile. “What’s this?”

In wwx defense (I don't do that a lot but imma play devil's advocate for a sec) jfm didn't love him for who he was, he loved him for who his parents were, if he were some random kid jfm would have left him on the street to freeze, that's gotta mess with your head. Jyl and jc loved him for who he was, and when he thought he lost that he went searching for someone who would. He's just a guy who wants unconditional love, would he get that from jc if they sat down and talked about their feelings for once? Yeah, but they're both fucked up from their childhood, so wwx replaced that with lwj. Not saying it's a good nice thing and he's done terrible stuff in his life, but I can understand wanting someone to just love you for you, not who they think you should be. Anyways thanks for the jc defense and support you always give, he gets way too much hate in this fandom I'll never understand it

omg I am definitely not saying WWX had it good with the Jiangs, they fucked up all three kids! and the appeal of a relationship like his with LWJ is very clear for his particular personality and traumas-- I just think it's really interesting that so much is left unresolved in favor of that relationship in a way that doesn't feel sustainable

like there are some/many romances where the resolution of the central relationship is the symbolic resolution of both partners' major traumas/issues/questions/whatever, and thus other threads can be left unresolved by the narrative in explicit terms because they've been symbolically resolved by the resolution of the protagonists' emotional journey. but that doesn't feel like the case in MDZS at all!