#reconciliation between jc and wwx is hard work and part of it is *proving* that things will be different if you have a second chance:

[neverdoingmuch]

something that i’ve seen a lot in fics and posts is people getting annoyed at lwj for getting between jc and wwx and/or jc and wwx’s reconciliation. someone will write about lwj trying to maintain distance between the two of them and people will complain about how lwj overstepping his bounds and be mad that he’s not letting them be brothers again. which like yeah, fantastic, if you want a reconciliation lwj is definitely going to be an obstacle stopping that, but you need to look at it from lwj’s point of view.

lwj was told by everyone that jc killed wwx (or at the very least was responsible for his death) and jc never contradicted that. he also led the siege of the burial mounds; he wasn’t someone who tagged along to try and keep his reputation without actually partaking in the bloodshed, he didn’t come to help save wwx or the wens, jc led the attack on the burial mounds. that implies a certain level of intent to kill or harm that can’t be easily ignored.

jc then proceeded to spend the next thirteen years (or sixteen because he did this in cql too) torturing and killing demonic cultivators. while you could interpret that as jc just wanting to stop demonic cultivators from fucking things up and causing any mayhem and suffering, it’s pretty clear from the way jc reacts when wwx comes back from the dead that he was killing them all on the off chance that one of them was wwx. to be clear, jc garnered a reputation of killing anyone who might have possibly been wwx. one of mdzs’s themes is about the damaging nature of rumours, so you could try and interpret jc’s reputation as a rumour that’s spun out of control, but, given the way jl reacted when jc captured wwx, it’s probably fair to say that there’s a decent amount of truth in his reputation - a reputation that lwj is probably well aware of.

so now you have lwj living in a world where the one other person who should be mourning the loss of wwx is someone who caused his death and is still so caught up in their past that he keeps wanting to kill him again if he ever comes back. this isn’t a condemnation of jc’s character, it’s just the image of his character that his actions cast. 

anyway, wwx comes back to life and jc immediately tries to kill him, forcing lwj to step in between them to protect wwx, and then jc spends the rest of the novel actively antagonising wwx. this is from trying to kill him some more to trapping him in a room with his greatest fear to trying to ruin his relationship with the one person who’s standing by his side. jc doesn’t once show any hint that he wants to get along with wwx again (unless you count him telling wwx to kneel before his parent’s tablets and then when he does exactly that, attacking him again) until the truth comes out at guanyin temple. 

say what you want to about whether they should or shouldn’t reconcile but lwj definitely isn’t being unreasonable when he’s being cautious about jc. if wwx were to tell him that he wants to reconcile with his brother and make amends, he’d probably first tell him that there’s nothing to make amends for but then he’d let wwx do that - lwj would keep close to wwx to protect him but he wouldn’t get in the way of their reconciliation. at the end of the novel though, wwx and jc split paths and the focus is on the future that wwx gets to have with his new family instead of his past with his old family and reconciling with jc. so no, lwj trying to keep jc away from wwx isn’t him being a “bad” character, it’s him being protective over someone who has been repeatedly hurt time and time again by someone who, just a few weeks ago, would have killed wwx on the spot. 

from jc’s pov it’s a lot more complicated because this is his brother who he’d loved and lost, who he thought had betrayed him and caused him to lose so much, and he’s carried that rage with him for 13(/16) years. and when he finds out the truth, when he learns that he’d never actually lost his brother, he might decide that he wants to make up with him. we know that the twin prides of lotus pier are a dead dream - they’d been killed after the sunshot campaign and their coffin only sealed properly in guanyin temple - but they could still be family if they put the effort in. 

now jc might want that, he might wake up one morning and decide that he’s lost too much to let wwx and jc live their second life as strangers, but lwj isn’t going to know that! lwj isn’t going to know about the way wwx had comforted jc at his lowest by telling him about how they could be the twin prides, he isn’t going to know about the way wwx had pulled away after the war when jc needed his strength the most, he’s not going to know about the way jc clung onto the promise of wwx’s future by his side only to have wwx leave him. all lwj knows is that jc has spent just as many years hating wwx as he did loving his brother. and if you want to create a reconciliation for wwx and jc that is accurate and loyal to the characters, you need to be able to acknowledge that; lwj isn’t being petty towards jc because of some contrived reason, he loathes him because of everything he did to hate wwx and spit on his memory. 

lwj isn’t going to step aside and let jc get anywhere near wwx until he proves that he’s not going to hurt wwx again. there’s a lot of nuance in their relationship - being between wwx and jc or between lwj and jc - that tends to get flattened down and ignored in order to make a reconciliation work. reconciliation between wwx and jc is hard work and part of it is proving that things will be different when you’re given a second chance. when lwj got given his second chance, he did everything he regretted never doing before - he stood by wwx and protected him and loved him and he was unabashed and proud in everything he did for wwx. jc and wwx have been given a second chance too and them becoming brothers again isn’t as simple as lwj being pissy and protective and wwx and jc drinking a lot and then deciding they’re brothers again, it’s jc showing that he doesn’t want wwx dead anymore and wwx trusting jc with the truths about himself or the world that he’d always tried to hide from him. and that’s even before they actually get to reconcile. 

#mdzs #modao zushi #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #lan wangji #yunmeng bros #i guess? #like i love reconciliation fics a lot but they do tend to flatten down a lot of the reasons why they fell apart in the first place #it's not as simple as wwx joining the wens and jc being betrayed/left behind #give us development!! make wwx and jc work on their relationship!! #two brother who have to spend time getting to know each other again - getting to know the real people they are & not the image they have of #each other in their own minds - and working through their problems is so much more interesting than just wwx going yeah im sorry and jc #saying me too and now we're brothers again #or jc just stomping into cloud recesses and demanding to know why he wasnt invited to the wangxian wedding with no prior indication that #either of them wanted a reconciliation #just! use the complicated relationships tag for them! they deserve it! #invest the time to do character analysis and have them work through their miscommunications and issues and *then* be brothers again #AND STOP MAKING LWJ THE BAD GUY!!! #he is concerned and protective - he's not smothering or overprotective or getting in the way #he's behaving exactly as he should in that situation!! #the untamed #cql #idk if this post counts as long? for me it isnt but for you it could be #lemme know if i need to add a read more #also! this isnt me shitting on jc!! this is me saying hey look there are multiple povs in this story and this is lwj's! #i tried to be as objective as possible but the fact is that mdzs is about miscommunication so there's gonna be complicated relationships #and it's not a bad thing!!