Xie Lian, Age 17, Says (paraphrasing): "if Heaven Needs To Sacrifice An Innocent Little Boy To Be Appeased

It's very important to my understanding of all three characters that Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli see Wei Wuxian as their sibling, and he sees them as his. But I think it's also important that he is not their sibling, legally or socially.

When Jin Zixuan snaps "If you like Jiang Yanli so much, why don't you ask her father if you can marry her", I think the implication is pretty clear that this is in fact a thing Wei Wuxian could have done if they'd felt that way about each other. (And Madam Yu would no doubt have flipped a table at the "son of a servant" daring to suggest such a thing, but Jiang Fengmian would probably have been delighted.) No one reacts to this comment like JZX just said something insane or implied WWX is into incest.

Dadji how I love you

This made me realise that I tend to pick apart people in real life the same way. Like, why did they do this? Why not that? Why? Why? Why? And of course that's my own method of coping, but also it is a result of being able to see potentiality, and how things could have been just a little different and how that would have made so much difference. Which is also, now that I think about it, a coping mechanism. If things could have been different then there is still hope that they might be different someday. But if not, then it hurts so much, it's so senseless that I got hurt just because someone else was having A Day. I love Aus for that reason too. Everything can be made better. And I can conjure gratitude by assuring myself that atleast it's not as bad as it could be.

as much as I enjoy reading discourse on why this person and that person did that in mdzs, sometimes I feel like we think too much on them and it really is just… the characters are just… human… (referencing people in the main cast) They do things whatever they think is right and wrong, because of their own histories, upbringing and personalities. It’s inevitable that they clash with others, which escalates emotions and events. Their very superficial society doesn’t help at all. With everything coming together in a shitshow, this makes all their stories so damn painful and tragic.

This doesn’t mean that I excuse characters who inflict more harm on others. I acknowledge and don't want to take away whatever any character experienced. Being human doesn't excuse shitty behaviour. But still, I feel for them that they had to resort to/end up in their respective ways to make it through their loveless world. I want to focus on the greyness of humanity behind everything that happens in the story. One of the many thematic concerns that resonate with me is how much of us as humans are black and white (as such, we debate on the characters’ place on this spectrum, because of their actions). 不说黑白, Never black or white. Even if it nears the blackened end, it still never goes pitch black.

I say 人就是人，人就是这样 — People are people, people are simply like this. We all can be kind, we all curse out. We are all insecure about something. We laugh, we cry. We write love songs as much as easily as we write hateful messages. One day our loved ones and friends are around, and the next day, they aren’t anymore. There are times in our past that we can never return to and we can do nothing but move on with our own ways of coping, for what we think will be a better life for us. For better or worse.

Amidst all the viciousness and pettiness of the jianghu, mdzs touches on our tragedies and fallacies as people just trying to make sense of an unfeeling world, with unjust consequences and impartiality. Many of the mdzs characters try, and they fail. Isn’t this how our own reality is? How many of us have the privilege of a denouement to our own stories?

We can all have our personal opinions on the characters and their actions, but do not deny them their humanity or whatever shred of it is left.

I finished it!

I would read 50 extra chapters of wwx with the ducklings

人若思念便思念 / 终会相见

what if....

the only acceptable amount of distance is no distance, obviously

Let me photograph you in this light

Maybe it's a good thing that Lan Zhan had minimal rizz back in the day.

One while time compliment from him would've rendered baby Wei Wuxian catatonic.

Lan Zhan: You're so beautiful. Won't you please stop drinking alcohol in Cloud Recesses?

Wei Wuxian: *drops jug in shock*

This idea that none of the great clans could offer the Wen Remnants protection because it would lead to war is so ridiculous.

People always throw out this excuse to defend Jiang Cheng, Lan Xichen, and Nie Mingjue for their involvement and complicity in the Wen Remnants massacre, but it's a complete bullshit.

For the Jin Clan to declare war on another great clan, they would need a solid, irrefutable justification. Look at Wei Wuxian: he wasn’t part of the gentry, had no support after cutting ties with the Jiang Clan, and his reputation was already down in the drain. Yet even with all of that, it still took the death of Jin Zixuan, the clan's heir, for the Jin Clan to finally have a strong enough justification to declare war against him. Declaring war on another great clan would require far more than that.

Taking in the Wen Remnants and supporting Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have sparked a war. At most, it would have strained diplomatic relations and potentially broken a few alliances and the Jin Clan would no doubt apply political pressure. But that's as far as it would go—there would be no full-blown war.