#though of course he could have changed his mind after Yanli's death in nightless city

[winepresswrath]

Whats your opinion on JC knowing Sizhui is a Wen? I've seen interpretations where people say he would have recognised Yuan if he saw him young enough and put two and two together, others where he finds out later and flies into a rage. I personally think he would be fairly disinterested in LWJ's ward that he wouldn't recognise him, but I really can't see him wanting a child dead after finding out who he is.

I don't have a firm opinion! I tend more towards thinking he'll probably figure it out at some point post canon based on how Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning interact with Sizhui, but post canon Jiang Cheng is someone who has made his peace with Wen Ning running around. If Jiang Cheng is willing to downgrade Wen Ning from "brother-in-law killing, life ruining, unholy abomination I'd like to set on fire" to "person I don't want to invite into my house" after the second siege at the burial mounds but before the golden core reveal and Wen Ning choosing to protect Jin Ling from Mingjue, I can't see him not at a minimum extending the same courtesy to a friend of Jin Ling's who he doesn't have any specific grudge against. I think he's likely to feel some combination of fascinated by and uncomfortable with the Wei Wuxian connection, but there's a lot of different places you can go with that. I agree that pre-canon Jiang Cheng is probably not very interested in Lan Wangji's ward and is also unlikely to be in direct contact with baby lans until they're old enough to come out night hunting.

#this is another one where book vs show matters a lot! #Jiang Cheng leading the siege at nightless city is a very different vibe #than Jiang Cheng looking upset about Wen Qing's ashes #though of course he could have changed his mind after Yanli's death in nightless city #which is a breaking point for all Jiang Chengs #but the book also does give us a scene where #some lady says that Jiang Cheng refused aid to a dude who just happened to have Wen as a surname and wasn't even a cultivator #which is third hand gossip and thus not necessarily reliable in an mxtx book but still #not a thing in the show where he mostly seems to hate Wen Ning in particular #so I do think there's a reasonable case to be made that precanon Jiang Cheng would be angry about #the lans harbouring a Wen and teaching him to cultivate #but like you I doubt he'd want him dead. permabanned from lotus pier #I can see but I think it's also possible he'd just stuff it in the feelings hole and fume #and yet! even book Jiang Cheng is bumping into Wen Ning on night hunts where they're both stalking their kids #without any major disasters #meanwhile I honestly think Jiang Cheng in the show would just be like nephew? nephew :/ #and then start chucking himself in front of swords without every conveying that sentiment to anyone #TBF he might be willing to do that for any age appropriate friends Jin Ling makes who don't make fun of him for having a dead mom #he knows how lonely being a teenaged sect leader is! he's openly devastated on Jin Ling's behalf by how the Yaoyao situation #resolves itself #I cannot see him destabilizing those friendships unless he believed that Sizhui was a legitimate threat

[aspiringprofessionalnerd]

Wei Wuxian and the Trauma of the Burial Mounds

Sorry folks I am officially In My Feels after therapy this week, and then I came online this afternoon to see that @hunxi-guilai has knocked it out of the park with their analysis again. I love to see that people are talking about the portrayal of WWX’s trauma on a larger level, and I wanted to add my two cents:

Pre-Resurrection

First of all, I want to acknowledge that WWX is far from the only person who experiences trauma throughout the course of CQL ahem Jiang Cheng . Even WWX endures various types of trauma throughout his first life. But what I’m so impressed (and gutted) by is the way in which the show establishes that it is WWX’s first stint in the Burial Mounds specifically that breaks him (or, at least, catalyses his breakdown). 

We know WWX has had a difficult childhood and teen years. He lost his parents at a young age and had to survive on the streets for an unspecified amount of time, facing physical and logistical hardships like running from dogs and battling starvation (no cultivation training yet, so no opportunity to train inedia) as well as the grief of losing his parents. Yet, remarkably, aside from his lingering fear of dogs, these incidents don’t seem to leave too many lasting physical or emotional scars. WWX is able to jump around and play with his adoptive brother on his first night at Lotus Pier, and when we see him in his teen years at Cloud Recesses Summer Camp he is a warm, bubbly individual with no reservations about physical contact (on the contrary, he’s more gung-ho about it than LWJ would like). He remains open to new experiences and new people, and even though he uses humour to obfuscate at times, the people close to WWX can still see through to his deeper intentions (take, for example, Yanli reminding Jiang Cheng that WWX is serious about the important things). Moreover, once the Jiang siblings and WWX return to Lotus Pier, we gain a greater appreciation for the past things WWX has survived, including years of verbal abuse some awkward family dynamics. Madam Yu’s words obviously hurt him, but even so he bounces back almost immediately and diverts his attention to comforting Jiang Cheng despite the fact that he is still recovering from Teenage Mutant Murder Turtle injuries himself. I think there is an important distinction to be made here: it’s not that criticism and harsh conditions just roll off of WWX. He DOES process and internalise them, but he keeps going and maintains his faith and openness in spite of having these negative experiences. Clearly, he is a remarkably resilient person. 

After the massacre at Lotus Pier and Jiang Cheng’s loss of his golden core, we see WWX wrestle with more complex emotions: grief, guilt, and concern. It’s obvious that Wei Wuxian is suffering acutely, but he’s still doing it in a way that’s very true to his character as we know it. He’s crying. He’s seeking physical comfort from Yanli. He’s proactive, looking to plan and problem-solve. Yes he balks a little at what JC’s core recovery will involve, but his overall reaction is primarily one of satisfaction and relief. 

We don’t see too much of WWX between the mountaintop ordeal and his dropping into the Burial Mounds, but I think we have enough material to say that he is still in command of his own mind and maintains his sense of agency. You can tell that our Wee Sweaty Boi has been through the wringer, but he’s still quite animated and even cheeky when facing off against Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu in the teahouse. That dog speech? Damn. Classic WWX. He might die, but he’s not going down without getting the last word. It’s only when they are all riding swords to the weirdest and most out of place glam rock score in the entire series wtf over the Burial Mounds that we see an inkling of genuine horror cross WWX’s face.

Take now, by contrast, WWX’s reactions and interactions post-Burial Mounds. His flinchy moments inspired such a visceral reaction in me. I’m a repeat trauma survivor as well, and when I saw the way that WWX jerked back from NHS’s hand, it was deeply uncomfortable to watch precisely because of how familiar it was. This is an instinctive, almost animalistic response to touch, and it’s a FEAR response. Moreover, this isn’t some rando about to bump into him; this is one of his best friends from childhood. This is the reaction of someone who has survived by believing that the only possible safe space he has is within the confines of his own body; if anyone touches that, it will shatter. Wei Wuxian’s logical mind can tell him that NHS is not a threat, but his trauma-brain can’t turn off the panic simply by knowing that. (And why should he trust his logical mind, anyway? As we get glimpses of in the first few moments of the Burial Mounds, it’s as much the voices of people he knows and loves as the voices of unnamed resentful souls that prey on him during those three months. The psychological trauma in the Burial Mounds was not just the introduction of external threats, but the convoluting of things WWX knew and loved into instruments of torture so that even once he returned to the world, he could not shake those negative associations.)

We get an equal-but-opposite illustration of WWX’s trauma in instances like his reunion with JC and LWJ or his soup session with Yanli. There’s a deadness behind the eyes, an uncanny stillness. Wei Wuxian is in survival mode, going through the motions of what ‘should’ be his return to normal life but wondering why it doesn’t feel right this time. Wei Wuxian had told himself in the Burial Mounds that all he needed to do was survive the Burial Mounds themselves and then everything would be alright: he would go back to Lotus Pier, JC would be healed, and he would make up a new version of the plan that had been shot to hell (I’m convinced that WWX DID originally have a plan for how to navigate life in Lotus Pier post-golden core; however, he never got to put that plan into place because he got dumped into the Burial Mounds before he could enact it). But Wei Wuxian returns, and what he’s told himself isn’t true, because in all his planning for returning to Yunmeng he didn’t account for the fact that what it took to get there would fundamentally alter him. As a result, Wei Wuxian doesn’t fit anymore--not because the world has changed, but because Wei Wuxian has changed. And he can’t talk about that with anyone.

Why not? Sure, in part it’s because he feels bound to keep the secret about Jiang Cheng, but I think there’s another aspect here that’s been significantly overlooked: namely, that Wei Wuxian is the ONLY person to survive the Burial Mounds in any kind of living cultural memory. The problem isn’t so much that he can’t tell people as it is an issue of no one being able to understand or relate to his experiences even if he did share them. After all, how do you convey to an outsider what it was like to survive for three months in a place where every single bit of torture was customised to draw on YOUR individual, personal fears and hurts? Significantly, this is also the point in the story where we see Wei Wuxian begin to answer questions by in turn asking, ‘Would you believe me if I told you...?’ The question is rhetorical: he doesn’t expect people to believe him (although it still hurts when they don’t), but even if they do believe, it’s still not enough because they don’t understand. IMO, the rest of WWX’s issues leading up to the cliff at Nightless City stem from him trying--and failing--to come to terms with the loneliness of that knowledge.

Post-Resurrection

After WWX comes back, we see a shift in him. He’s no longer focused on the fact that no one will understand him; he’s decided that having someone (namely LWJ) believe him is enough. This resolves many of the auxiliary issues that had been plaguing WWX before his death, but it does NOT resolve the original trauma of his first experience in the Burial Mounds. WWX continues to have nightmares, and what are they about? Not Lotus Pier. Not Qiongqi Way and his sense of guilt. Not Shijie getting stabbed right in front of his face. Not his final, distraught moments with LWJ and JC. Nope, his nightmares continue to revolve around falling into the Burial Mounds all those years ago: an experience for which even death and rebirth are insufficient to ease the pain. 

I’m convinced that even at the end of CQL Wei Wuxian still has a LOT of healing to do, and I think this healing is not something that can happen through Lan Zhan’s love alone. Thank goodness for fanfic and headcanons, eh?

**Gentle reader, this turned out to be more like 50 dollars than two cents. Thank you for reading to the end if you’re still with me!

TL;DR I believe Wei Wuxian’s turning point moment in the story is his dumping into the Burial Mounds. It’s easy to get swept up in how many terrible things happen to him AFTER that in the lead-up to Nightless City, but I genuinely think he could have endured the loss of his Jiang family, the censure of LWJ, and society turning against him if he had not been psychologically broken during his first three months there. The writers, directors, and Xiao Zhan give us a very raw, real version of what trauma looks like with their depiction of post-Burial Mounds WWX, and it is utterly harrowing.

#cql #xiao zhan #big angst vibes #the untamed #meta #wei wuxian #i've edited this too many times because i'm a perfectionist #but it's still a mess because i've picked up slang from each country i live in #also talking about my own feelings? #nope don't like that one bit #projecting hard #ptsd #mdzs