#no not fear Lan Xichen Sect Leader Yao Nie Huaisang etc

[featherfur]

No okay I’m thinking about the 13/16 year gap between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng again and how far away they are and not because of the siege. No instead it’s because Jiang Cheng grew up and Wei Wuxian wasn’t there.

Wei Wuxian is 13/16 years behind the man who Jiang Cheng has become. There’s some things that haven’t changed, Jiang Cheng still names his pets the fluffiest names, he still chows down like a maniac whenever he sees anything citrus, he won’t touch water chestnuts, he likes using two swords for training both hands equally, all things that Wei Wuxian remembers.

But there’s so much he never had the chance to learn.

He doesn’t know that Jiang Cheng now takes sweet tea with lemon cakes under a pavilion at exactly noon every day. He doesn’t know Jiang Cheng thinks the word “cork” is the funniest thing because of one joke Chao Bolin said. He doesn’t know that Jiang Cheng now guards his right more heavily and forgets to guard his left because he’s so used to moving in a three man team of him and his senior disciples. He doesn’t know that Jiang Cheng let’s himself be bullied by the disciples into having parties. He doesn’t know that Jiang Cheng is willing to wield two swords and trust another disciple with Zidian. He doesn’t know that Jiang Cheng tried and failed to learn how to paint fans and Jin Ling definitely has them hidden away for laughs.

Wei Wuxian wasn’t there to learn those things. He has so much catching up to do but first he needs to learn that his shidi isn’t his shidi anymore. Wei Wuxian knows his little brother who grew up beside him but now that spot he stood in has been taken by Jiang disciples who guard it jealously.

Wei Wuxian gets struck by surprise when he sees Jiang Cheng actually smile at a joke that a junior makes. He chokes on tea when Jiang Cheng very carefully lifts up a bottle of wine that almost fell off the table and passes it to another disciple to pour on someone’s head and smirks at the fake outrage. He nearly has a heart attack when some merchant storms in and starts screaming and Jiang Cheng doesn’t panic, doesn’t yell back, doesn’t look to him for support like the Jiang Cheng Wei Wuxian remembers would. He simply blinks and calms the merchant down in seconds and starts working on the problem.

The anxious new leader, the socially awkward baby brother, the angry shidi, the lonesome man that Wei Wuxian once knew inside and out… Now stands before him completely different, in a second life that Wei Wuxian only now gets a chance to be a part of and he doesn’t know if there’s room.

#mdzs #the untamed #Jiang Cheng #Jiang sect #okay look #LOOK #there’s so much bull about how JC never changed and yet so much of the story is #only possible because he did change #JC in cloud recess was an awkward baby who just wanted to make his family proud and be a good sect leader and keep his #brother out of trouble even if he has to bow his head for him #post war hes finicky and snappy but he goes out of his way to try and help his brother even when he’s shoved aside and lied too #he still tries to convince Wei Wuxian to come back even with all the Wen shit going on #and then Wei Wuxian leads to the death of his sister and Jiang Cheng goes buck wild with rage and hate and #proceeds to have a perfectly well built sect that has the respect of every single sect leader #no not fear Lan Xichen Sect Leader Yao Nie Huaisang etc #not a single one of them fear him (except maybe if they thought they’d have to fight him but that’s different) #no they /Respect/ him and his sect #and Jiang Cheng sits back and lets Lan Wangji be fucking majorly disrespectful to both him and Jin Ling to avoid starting a fight with #Lan Xichen (WHICH IS LITERALLY HOW THE PART OF THE STORY SAYS IT) #because he’s a damn good fucking sect leader and he can be respectful #Wei Wuxian was just *always* a different story because JC never had to turn his cheek towards him and #WWX never held back on him either it was mutual until WWX couldn’t and JC didn’t know that #and then in the narrative the only time we see JC in novel is when shit is going down and YET by background and narrative of #shit NOT happening we know JC was just doing his job as sect leader because otherwise #there would have been a full on man hunt for WWX at Gusu Lan because JC knows it’s WWX and knows LWJ has him #and yet! #not even mentioning CQL that literally just has JC being a normal dude in the background even at times when his #necromancer homicidal brother is waltzing around in a mask or losing his gourd #my point is #JC did a lot of growing WWX wasn’t there for and it’s time for WWX to start learning his baby older brother and we gonna angst to get there