Wei Wuxian Is Perpetually Being Dragged Around And Forced To Fulfill Other Peoples Expectations. And

Wei Wuxian is perpetually being dragged around and forced to fulfill other people’s expectations. And also, and I blame CQL for this one: Once the Mo family was dead, the contract was fulfilled. He did not spend the entire novel hunting for the last person Mo Xuanyu wanted revenge on. The people Mo Xuanyu wanted dead were his aunt, uncle, cousin, and A-Tong.

So whatever happened when Mo Xuanyu was kicked out of the Jin? He didn’t care enough to take revenge.

Wei Wuxian did not “body-snatch” Mo Xuanyu’s body; he was forcibly pulled from the afterlife to inhabit said body to enact revenge on behalf of Mo Xuanyu, under threat of having his soul annihilated. Mo Xuanyu only had to sacrifice his physical body—not his soul or ability to reincarnate—on his end to complete the spell. Wei Wuxian’s consent was not necessary, and he was not exactly jumping for joy upon discovering he was alive again because someone thought he was cruel and evil.

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A lot of younger people have no idea what aging actually looks and feels like, and the reasons behind it. That ignorance is so dangerous. If you don’t want to “be old,” you aren’t talking about a number of years. I have patients in their late 80s who could still handily beat me in a race—one couple still runs marathons together, in their late 80s—and I lost someone who was in her early 60s to COPD last year. What you want is not youth, it is health.

If you want to still be able to enjoy doing things in your 60s and 70s and 80s and even 90s, what you want to do, right now, is quit smoking, get some activity on a regular basis (a couple of walks a week is WAY better for you than nothing; increasing from 1 hour a day of cardio to 1.5 will buy you very little), and eat some plants. That’s it. No magic to it. No secret weird tricks. Don’t poison yourself, move around so your body doesn’t forget how, and eat plants.

If you have trouble moving around now because of mobility limitations, bad news: you still need to move around, not because it’s immoral not to, but because that’s still the best advice we have. I highly recommend looking up the Sit and Be Fit series; it is freely available and has exercises that can be done in a chair, which are suitable for people with limited mobility or poor balance. POTS sufferers, I’m looking at you.

If you have trouble eating plants because of dietary issues (they cause gas, etc.) or just because they’re bitter (super taster with texture issues here!), bad news. You still want to find a way to get some plants into your body on a regular basis. I know. It sucks. The only way I can do it is restaurants—they can make salads taste like food. I can also tolerate some bagged salads. On bad weeks, the OCD with contamination focus gets so bad I just can’t. However, canned beans always seem “safe,” and they taste a bit like candy, so they’re a good fallback.

If you smoke and you have tried quitting a million times and you’re just not ready to, bad news. You still need to quit. Your body needs you to try and keep trying. Your brain needs it, too. Damaging small blood vessels racks up cumulative damage over time that your body can start trying to reverse as soon as you quit. I know it’s insanely, absurdly addictive. You still need to.

You cannot rules lawyer your way past your body’s basic needs. It needs food, sleep, activity, and the absence of poison. Those are both small things and big asks. You cannot sustain a routine based on punishment, so don’t punish your body. Find ways to include these things that are enjoyable and rewarding instead. Experiment. There is no reason not to experiment—you don’t have to know instantly what’s going to work for you and what won’t, you just need to be willing to try things and make changes when things aren’t working for you.

You will still age. Your body will stop making collagen and elastin. Tissues you can see and tissues you can’t see will both sag. Cushioning tissues under your skin will get thinner. You’ll bruise more easily. Skin will tear more easily. Accumulated sun damage will start to show more and more. Joints will begin to show arthritis. Tendons and ligaments will get weaker and get injured more easily, as will muscles. Bones will lose mass and get easier to break. You’ll get tired more easily.

But you know what makes the difference between being dead, or as good as, in your 60s vs your 90s? Activity, plants, and quitting smoking. And don’t do meth. Saw a 58-year-old guy this week who is going to have a heart attack if he doesn’t quit whatever stimulant he’s on. I pretended to believe it was just the cigarettes, and maybe it is, but meth and cocaine will kill you quicker. Stop poisoning yourself.

Baby steps; take it one step at a time; you don’t need to have everything figured out right now. But you do need to be working on figuring things out.

hi, ive been reading your jc takes and i found i p much agree with everything, but i wanted to ask, how do you square the moment jc sacrifices himself for wwx by distracting the wen guards with... everything else he does

also the moment he brings wwx his flute, if he only feels hate for wwx why would he do that?

As I’ve said, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were friends, and I 100% believe that the fall of Lotus Pier and the emergence of the Sunshot Campaign is why they remained friends for so long, especially in the direct aftermath of the fall which saw Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian having to rely solely on each other for survival. So I believe without a doubt that Jiang Cheng distracted the Wen cultivators to protect Wei Wuxian… without considering the full consequences of getting caught. I believe that had Jiang Cheng considered losing his golden core a real possibility, he would not have used himself as a distraction. But he did use himself as a distraction, and he did lose his golden core, and despite the fact that Wei Wuxian rectified that with his “miracle connections,” he spends close to twenty years taking that out on Wei Wuxian, lest we forget that upon waking after being rescued, he tries to go for Wei Wuxian’s throat again.

As for Jiang Cheng returning Chenqing, it’s a symbol of the one moment of character growth he has in the entire novel: fully letting Wei Wuxian go. Jiang Cheng held onto that flute because he just “knew” that if Wei Wuxian came back to life, he would immediately search for his most fearsome weapon, because Wei Wuxian “must” be a showoff obsessed with power (because Jiang Cheng would be, in his position). He was keeping it in hopes of successfully luring Wei Wuxian in for a slaughter. But what he failed to realize before and finally understood at the end was that Wei Wuxian never was and never would be like Jiang Cheng. He did not seek power or fame or vengeance over perma-grudges; he didn’t need Chenqing. So Jiang Cheng gives it back, thereby thematically releasing his last standing preconceived notions on his former shixiong and his need to hunt him down in a one-sided competition. (Now if only he’d done the same for Wen Ning… 😒)

“Wei Wuxian did so much for Jiang Cheng in life” ≠ “Wei Wuxian loved Jiang Cheng so much”

Those are two separate sentences relating to two separate ideas. They are not synonymous with each other nor mutually exclusive, given how only the former is true to the story.

“Wei Wuxian did so much for Jiang Cheng in life therefore he loved Jiang Cheng so much” is false causation.

Wei Wuxian is not a character shown to only go above and beyond because a situation involves a “loved one.” Wei Wuxian did so much for Mianmian despite only ever talking to her because he wanted to get her medicine pouch for his crush. Wei Wuxian did so much for Wen Ning despite not even remembering who he was during their previous encounter. Wei Wuxian did so much for the older cultivators during the second siege despite most of them admitting to having participated in the first siege that killed him and his charges. Sometimes, doing things for others at risk to yourself can mean love. Most of the time, it does not.

And this is why I am so glad I did not get an official copy when it came out. First, I was broke and could not afford it. Then I heard what people were saying. So. If I do get an official copy? It will not be in English and I will just MTL it. Or use the Wayback machine.

Been inundated with posts about the character descriptions in the 7seas mxtx releases, and I just wanna say that I find it the highest level of disrespect how a publisher treated someone’s serious writing that they bought the publishing rights for as a little jokey joke that’s lead to so many people’s misconceptions about said book. Tell me: why do these character sheets include publisher/translator opinions on the characters? Why do these character sheets directly go against what the actual text has to say about these characters? Why do these novels need character sheets?

Which translation you use matters. I was lucky enough to learn that early. So when I tracked it down and started reading it, yes, I did finish up with exr. They were the only ones done. (Love them odor that, but I think they made a few translations at the beginning that they then had to keep running with for consistency’s sake.)

Man. Do you get a totally different take on certain characters after that.

MDZS Notes + Analysis — Chapter Two: “Reincarnation”

Three main things stood out to me when rereading this chapter: the theme of status, our intro to WWX, and the information we’re given about his state after death.

…Well, four things, but the other one will get its own post.

The theme of status is immediately introduced* with ‘MXY’’s treatment and the backstory of MXY and his mother, yet again showing just how well MDZS’s ideas are integrated into the text and how well it’s paced! You’re introduced to every important theme so, so early on. Two screenshots are analysed below:

(See: entitlement of the upper classes towards the lower classes, and how this can exist even between members of the ‘same family’; and arguably the idea of debts between a richer family and someone who was 'taken in'. There are a surprising amount of parallels between MXY and WWX, but I'll make my own post about that)

(See: once again, differences in status between members of the same family, and also the worse, and disposable, treatment of one daughter because she was "the daughter of a servant". Now, why does that phrase sound familiar...?)

Also, MXY's mother was sixteen when she attracted JGS's attention... if you somehow needed even more material to hate the guy...

We also get introduced to WWX’s personality(!), which immediately disproves the rumours from last chapter on how he'd cast the world into ruin:

(That's one of the first questions he asks after waking up – I love how he's so concerned about this! It shows us two important things, too: 1) Morality is important to WWX, and 2) Doing immoral things seems to be out of the ordinary for him. Both of these stand in direct contrast to the picture of WWX we were painted earlier!)

(Same thing here, along with showing us some of the (healthy!) pride WWX has – he wouldn't be offended at this if wasn't something he held as important within himself)

(I use this quote again, but here it's once again proving that the vengeful, evil WWX who'd sink the cultivation world into "nothing but chaos and despair" at the first chance he got... very much does not exist.)

(And finally, it's explicitly confirmed here that he's not the type to take exessive revenge and take pleasure in it... at least at this point in time, because. MXY definitely had reason to think this considering Sunshot!WWX, if everyone had been working from the truth. But importantly that isn't who he is now, and isn't who the WWX villified by the cultivation world was – imo that's including Nightless City, we'll get to that when I reach it. But note that actions during the Sunshot campaign aren't even mentioned in the prologue, because, shock, they actually helped the cultivation world win the war! Though that doesn't mean they weren't part of rumours + the WWX hatred mill later.)

Then some non-morality related things:

This is just really funny to me, with how the makeup being badly applied (:o) is enough of an issue to merit a thought – WWX I love you.

And then this way of thinking comes back a few times esp during the earlier chapters, enough to be noted I think.

Confirmation on WWX's status after he died – it's not anything new to point out, but this chapter does give us rare insights into what state he was in during the post-death, pre-rebirth period.

So, he was somewhat conscious, enough to be aware of what he was(n't) doing – seeking vengeance, haunting the living – and was seemingly in control of those actions. However, he was specifically a "wandering ghost" – his soul didn't pass onto the afterlife or "return back to Earth"** like the body-offering spell's caster's would. He was conscious that a long time had passed as well, and this long period of downtime where he could accept + deal with what happened in his first life is what likely allowed him to be so well-adjusted the second time round – even taking into account the remarkably good way he tends to deal with things in general (cue the "forgetting the wound when the pain fades" quote, it summarises WWX's mindset really well)***.

Also, as for resisting the summons from the prologue – I'm wondering how much was due to WWX's experience with resentful energy + general capability (if that affects it..?) allowing him to consciously refuse, how much was due to WWX not being the type to hold onto resentment (so possibly spells targeting ghosts, full of this resentful energy, wouldn't be as affected?), and how much was due to the relative lack of knowledge about how ghosts/resentful energy works compared to WWX. Or, if it was something else. Either way, achieving the impossible, that's WWX for you :D

It is interesting that he hasn't heard a voice in ages despite wandering, too – do ghosts just not hear the same way, or did he deliberately avoid areas with people? I could see both, the second being more likely, especially considering how many people wanted to summon him back for... less than stellar purposes.

Misc:

Poor Mo Xuanyu....

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*Well, reinforced – in the prologue, one of the things said about WWX is that "if not for the YunmengJiang clan’s adopting and teaching him, he would have been a hobo living on the streets", which is among the insults people throw. So of course, class-affecting-perception is tied to WWX from the very beginnning! But this is the first time it's actually explored, not a throwaway line.

**Though that may be what's literally happening to WWX's soul here – it is wandering around Earth – I don't think that's what this line refers to. There's a very good meta on how different translations handled that line, and from my memory it seems to instead refer to passing onto some sort of afterlife/to the reincarnation cycle. I can't seem to find it, which is annoying as 1) I'd love to fact-check, 2) I want to credit my sources, and 3) it's a very good read – it started out questioning why in the 7S translation it says MXY's soul would be destroyed, so if anyone can easily locate it so I can link it here, that would be much appreciated!

***It would be very interesting to read a fic where it felt like no time had passed for him since his death, actually! Though the extremely stressful circumstances are gone, it would still be interesting to see a WWX for whom the Siege, Nightless City, Qiongqi Path etc are pretty recent – but only in fic territory, since I'm so, so glad we got the WWX we did in canon. Also, I'd love to see a fic maybe exploring some of his time as a ghost...?