Correct me if I’m wrong @hunxi-guilai but I think you haven’t read the novel? Because I think some people have really framed this kiss wrongly, and assimilated it to the later consensual rape kinks. And I think that’s really a disservice to MXTX’s writing.
The Phoenix Mountain kiss is at best dubcon. I personally read it as noncon. This was a deliberate choice by MXTX. She didn’t “accidentally” write noncon because she thought it romantic or didn’t know about consent. She wrote noncon in the story because consent is actually one of the recurring themes of MDZS.
We get this scene from Wei Wuxian’s point of view, like nearly all the novel, and we learn several things in this scene about our protagonist. First, that, for all the rumours about the Yiling Laozu’s promiscuity, he had not in fact ever kissed anyone at this point, and wanted to save this kiss for his significant other. Our boy is a romantic, and he also mould himself to rumours and reacts to expectations. He survived all this time by performing as society expected of him (and I do think that in the novel a big part of his “prankster” personality is just a mechanism to seem less threatening to Jiang Cheng’s prospects (look at me, I’m a fun and unreliable guy, certainly not in line to inherit anything. It’s a survival defence against Madam Yu, but he later get trapped in it)).
In this kiss, he at first doesn’t resist, then changes in mind, then when it’s done just put it behind me with a “at least I made someone happy!” attitude. At this point, readers have no idea about the golden core transfer. The novel doesn’t provides any of the numerous cues CQL does. But we get WWX, losing something that was important to him (his first kiss), and sheltering the hurt because it would maybe have gotten a total stranger five minutes of happiness. This is a trauma response in an already deeply traumatized young man. He gives, and gives, and gives, was already on this path before this and stay on it after that.
It gives readers insight, but it doesn’t fundamentally alter the character’s trajectory.
You know who get fundamentally altered by this sexual assault? Lan Wangji.
Lan Wangji has an immediate and spectacular meltdown about it. He knew it was wrong. I really don’t see how you can read his meltdown as just “I kissed a guy”. No, it’s very clearly a “I’m a sexual offender” meltdown.
And he does what very few characters in fiction (and even fewer aggressors in real life) do: he reflects on it and he changes. It doesn’t matter at this point if Madam Lan was raped or not. The thing is, the Twin Jades don’t know. Lan Zhan is now wrestling with the fact that he may well be the child of a rape, that his mother was definitely not in agreement to stay in Clouds Recesses, that the rules are supposed to prevent that, but didn’t…
Child Lan Zhan may have thought that the problem was that his parents didn’t follow the rules, his mother a murderer, his father who married her against the will of the Sect (and if he was in a separate seclusion, how could Lan Zhan himself be born? Surely more rules were broken). But now, Lan Zhan has followed the rules, has worn his “self-restraint” forehead ribbon and still assaulted someone. Is it him? Is he inherently bad, and in that case, how can he judge Wei Ying? Or is it the rules? Are the rules of GusuLan not enough to curtail evil?
The next time he sees Wei Ying is at Qiongqi Path, when WWX liberates the Wen Remnants. And when asked to judge the situation, Lan Zhan doesn’t. He let them go, because he is unsure of his own righteousness, of his clan’s righteousness. This is a tremendous change compared to who he was during Sunshot.
Lan Wangji never again imposes any decision on Wei Wuxian. After the battle of Nightless City, he brings an injured Wei Wuxian to a cave and confesses his love. Wei Wuxian, delirious, tell him to get lost. Lan Wangji fight against the Elders of his clans who want to kill WWX, then bring WWX to the Burial Mounds. As soon as WWX is safe among the Wen Remnants (because only Wen Qing (and Wen Ning, officially) have been killed), Lan Wangji follows WWX’s wishes and leaves.
(and then go back to his own clan to be punished. He leaves the man he loves because he was asked to leave, and go back voluntarily to what he knows will be torture or maybe even execution. But WWX didn’t want him in the Burial Mounds, so LWJ doesn’t stay in the Burial Mounds).
After WWX’s resurrection, it’s the same. For all that the shenanigans of the first chapters of the novel are funny, LWJ never does anything for which he doesn’t have explicit oral permission for. He never instigates. He warns WWX that he will, in fact, exactly do as WWX is asking.
And when he drinks alcohol and is on the verge of losing his precious control, he knocks himself out. Not on his watch. Not again.
The story does end with rape role-play, and the only reason why that works is because LWJ is attuned to WWX’s consent. When he has a doubt, he verifies explicitly that they are still role-playing. There is an enthusiastic kinky sex scene at the end, and it’s the end of a very long narrative arc about consent.
tldr; The Phoenix Mountain kiss was noncon, and it was deliberate in MXTX’s writing
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