#because it strikes me as unpleasantly codependent

[fatalism-and-villainy]

So I get the sense that it’s a notion in certain parts of fandom that Wei Wuxian going off travelling at the end of the show constitutes an unhappy ending for our main characters, or indicates a failure of communication with each other in their desire to be in a relationship, and that Wei Wuxian needs to just get his shit together and realize he should go back to Lan Wangji. But my impression, even from the first time I watched the show, is that WWX’s need to explore for awhile has very little, if anything, to do with LWJ.

I mean, imagine being in WWX’s position. He died - committed suicide - at the absolute lowest point in his life, having renounced his adoptive family, had his chosen community of people slaughtered, and lost everything he had to live for. He was an extremely unhappy person! And then, he got yanked back into the living world, with no memory or awareness of where he was all those years he spent being dead - already deeply disconcerting - and immediately plunged into an investigation that he doesn’t really have a choice but to devote his entire being to. (CQL’s timeline is a bit murky, but my impression is that the post-resurrection plotline takes at least a few months to resolve.) Like... of course he needs time and space to process everything that’s happened to him! Of course he needs an opportunity to just live and experience the world - a world that he needs to become reacquainted with, after being gone for over a decade.

Especially because WWX is someone who copes with his own issues by throwing himself at other problems that need solving and people who need helping, hence why it’s been pointed out by others that running into Wen Qing during his self-destructive, PTSD-ridden binge drinking period post-Sunshot was what pulled him out of his stupor and gave him a purpose again. So I imagine that having a mystery to occupy himself with immediately upon returning to life was a very efficient distraction from his issues! But afterwards, when everything is cleared up, he’s suddenly left unmoored and vulnerable and without a strong sense of who he even is and how he fits into the world now. And yes, he has LWJ to go back to... but he can’t build his entire sense of identity around LWJ, and that relationship can’t be his only source of happiness and fulfillment. And he genuinely seems to like exploring and having new experiences and meeting new people! It’s a good way for him to get a sense of who he is now.

It’s true that WWX has a lot of insecurity and neurosis re: feeling deserving of care and affection, and I’m not claiming that he’s completely resolved those issues (or any of his issues). But I think there’s a lot more trust between him and LWJ, and that he’s considerably more secure in that relationship, by the end of the show. Post-resurrection there are a lot of scenes where he’s a lot more mature in his interactions with LWJ, a lot more capable of grasping LWJ’s boundaries, and a lot better at tempering his teasing with sincerity. So I don’t take his self-discovery journey as the same sort of destructive impulse towards isolation that he displays after his stint in the Burial Mounds. I think it’s a demonstration, rather, of the trust he’s built in LWJ, and in the fact that he doesn’t need to constantly be demanding attention for LWJ to still wait for him and be there for him when he’s ready to come back. And it’s being able to clearly communicate his needs and intentions in a given moment, rather than just shutting the other person out. 

And from LWJ’s perspective - it’s so important that he’s able to let WWX go! LWJ is also incredibly neurotic and also feels that he’s not deserving of love. And he grows up without any models of what healthy relationships look like - his parents’ relationship is the only framework he has, as evidenced by him taking inspiration from that in wanting to hide WWX at Cloud Recesses. But he quickly realizes that that’s not what he wants, and that he doesn’t want to force WWX to do anything. When WWX comes back to life, he takes care of him and gives him gifts not because he’s expecting anything in return, but because he loves him and wants to make him happy and show him kindness when so few people have. But it’s important, I think, for him to be able to spend time apart from WWX, to give him the space he needs, without seeing that as just another sacrifice that he’s making. When he sees WWX off on his self-discovery journey, he’s in a place where he can start to trust that WWX will come back, and that he has massive significance for WWX even when WWX doesn’t have to depend on him for emotional and material support.   

Being able to maintain distance from each other, and maintain their own separate identities and relationship, with each one still having confidence in the strong foundation they’ve built together, is very important to me, and it’s why I’m so defensive of this ending. 

#the untamed #cql #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wangxian #i hate pormenteau ship names. it is only tagged this way for blacklisting purposes #my meta #untaming #i really dislike their ending in the novel (and similar proposed happy endings) #because it strikes me as unpleasantly codependent #and fanfic and such that treats wwx's time travelling as an extension of their agonizing pining #isn't something i like because i feel that it ignores the progress they /have/ made together in their actual arc in the show #anyway i've gotten a little stream of new followers so i guess my ability to write meta is coming back #this is a cql ending apologist blog #he is my match