Hi! I am Sreya, a reader and a writer, and this is my blog dedicated to MDZS. I discuss novel canon, and occasionally go on rants about how much I adore this book.
I love and adore Wei Wuxian, and am an ardent shipper of Wangxian. This blog is not Jiang Cheng Friendly or Yu Ziyuan friendly. It will be critical on Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli, though there will probably not be any hate. My blog can and will contain criticisms of any character that isn't Wangxian, the Juniors and the Wen Remnants.
I don't care if you're pro-JC or anti-JC, if you're pro-JGY or anti-JGY. If you're Lan stans or Nie stans or Jiang stans. I really don't care. But, if you fuck with Wei Wuxian, I fuck with you.
We can disagree on everything else, we can argue against each other on those topics anytime and tear each other down in discussions about them.
As long as after all that, we can have polite and cordial conversations about what an absolute gift to the world WWX is, as long as you agree that Wei Wuxian did nothing wrong, ever, if you agree that WWX deserves the world and more, I'm cool with you.
My Fics can be found on my AO3 page: RighteousInAdversity
Asks - Asks are open
I am someone who has no patience for negativity or hate; send me that and I will delete it the moment it appears in the inbox. Otherwise, I am good with anything. You can just come into my ask box to rant about MDZS. I love rants about MDZS.
Finally, here is the prose on some of my favourite characters:
Hello! I'm more of a lurker but Heart's Courage was absolutely one of my favourite fics to ever read. I've had it saved since I joined the fandom in 2022 until now! I haven't been as into MDZS in the past 2 years but Heart's Courage was one of those fics that always just stuck with me, I thought about it like once every 2 months LOL. When I came back, it was no longer available and I didn't have the chance to download it but I just wanted to let you know that you're a wonderful writer and I look forward to reading anything you put out for us :))
Hello! I am so so glad you enjoyed it so much! Genuinely, this message made me smile so so wide, I am blushing.
I put it on hiatus because I kind of spiraled about the chapters I had already published not lining up with where I wanted to take the fic, and then real life got really hectic (which it still is and probably will be for another year or so...). I also started having health issues, and was trying to survive college, overall, it started stressing me out more than being fun, you know?
I hope I can someday return to it, because the story means a lot to me. I just don't think it will be anytime soon?
I've been taking a break from tumblr and the internet as a whole, so I just saw this, so sorry for such a late reply! I am so so grateful for the love you have for my fics, and I also hope i'll be able to continue writing soon!
I just want you all to know, that if and when this site does experience a real exodus and/or get sunsetted for good, even if we don't keep in touch I'll remember you so fondly. You're the online equivalent of the other kid on the beach where we built sandcastles together; the girl at the campsite where we explored the trees. You're the drunk person who shared kind words in the bathroom at the club, you're the talented artists at the life drawing class or the poetry night in a city where I don't live anymore. It makes me sad that maybe in the future our paths won't cross so easily, but even when we leave this little shared piece of cyberspace, carried away on our briefly intersecting trajectories, just know I still love you
the myth of helplessness and the “hands-tied” rhetoric for authority figures in mdzs
i’m pretty sure every one of us has seen this notion echoed around for atleast one of the clan/sect leaders when it came to their compliance and/or active participation in the wen remnants’ genocide as well as their prior lack of help/refuge for the wen remnants once wei wuxian had rescued them. while this goes beyond just the way the cultivation world’s leaders handled the aftermath of the sunshot campaign (namely, their lackadaisical approach to helping civilians, exploiting those weaker than them, etc.), i’ll start with the genocide because that’s the crux of it all. that’s the nail in the coffin, that’s the biggest proof of why i feel so fucking angry whenever i see this sentiment of excusing/justifying/or even explaining why the sect leaders did what they did.
and like most skewed interpretations of mdzs (and i don’t mean this in a haughty superior way of only MY way of reading the text being THE right way but i feel like this is something we all have noticed after traversing the fandom waters for a while), this too begins with jiang cheng.
now, let me clear: jiang cheng, in full sobriety and clarity of thought, led the siege of the burial mounds to kill a group of innocent people, which included elderly women and men and a child. you would think this should be obvious but i’ll retierate: NOTHING justifies this, nothing excuses this. the same applies to every single sect leader and sect affiliated member who went for the siege that day and participated in the killings, whether directly or indirectly. this isn’t a nuanced situation and i personally feel that a discussion that begins with the premise of muddying the culpability of the people involved in the genocide shouldn’t even be entertained because the reasons do not matter. they just don’t. it doesn’t matter that nie mingjue’s personal philosophy stemming from his upbringing and loss gave him a narrowminded view of the “wen-dogs”. it doesn’t matter that jiang cheng was sunken in grief and rage after losing his sister. it doesn’t matter that the lans were convinced of wei wuxian’s deviousness and found it paramount to put an end to him and his affialites. it doesn’t matter that some were operating on half the information because when you march into the temporary residence of your supposed foes and kill them all in cold-blood despite them being unarmed and untrained—the weight of ensuring that your violence has a meaning, a justification is on YOU! if you’re committing this act, you have to make sure you aren’t being led blindly by manipulating rumors and ideals.
even before the genocide, before the nightless city massacre, before the qiongqi path ambush—the way i’ve seen handwaving of jiang cheng’s mindset regarding the wens is a little baffling. “he had the burden of being a sect leader” “he had to protect his clan, his hands were tied!” jiang cheng wielding power and authority are often repackaged as baggage that his poor self is so tragically saddled with. it genuinely puzzles the shit out of me. have we all forgotten about “with great power comes great responsibility”?? jiang cheng’s responsibility as a cultivation sect leader goes beyond just the immediate thought about his sect and towards the cultivation world as a whole and how injustice was taking place by a fellow prominent clan. we know this is extremely important because the whole reason the sunshot campaign happened and why it came down to a war was because of prior negligence by the clans towards the congregation of power by the wens. to recognise the same methods now being employed by the jins was, infact, part of jiang cheng’s responsibility. just saving your own neck doesn’t work, when the larger picture is considered. besides, giving the wens the backing of the jiang clan would NOT have brought down instant doom upon the jiangs. that was the whole point. that was why jin guangshan felt it necessary to put ideas into his head and lead him to a path of hostility towards wei wuxian (which is still a choice jiang cheng made, mind).
also, while we’re at it, you’re telling me that the jiang clan rebuilt in part due to wei wuxian’s insane gravitational pull towards aspiring cultivators, would NOT have stood behind wei wuxian if jiang cheng had only tried? hell, i would go far as to say that some jiang disciples would have WANTED to join wei wuxian’s side. there was risk. there would be trouble. but that doesn’t mean jiang cheng had no option. the path of least resistance leads the crooked men, does it not? besides, being a leader is not about tucking tail and keeping your head down. it’s about making the difficult choices and yes, for jc, in this scenario, refusing to help the wens and wei wuxian was the easy choice.
also this whole myth about the sect leaders not being able to do anything because their clans would become targets is sort of antithetical to the whole premise of them being sect leaders in the first place. they’re the only ones who can do something with comparatively less risk to their person and those they’re “protecting” because they have the power of organisation. if the holders of authority cannot make decisive lines in the sand and push for change and resist, who can? the disciples or civilians would have an easier time opposing the clans individually or in groups, you think? they would have less to lose? (we already have an example in the form of mianmian; the waves had to be made from the top in this time-sensitive situation).
these fanon tropes originate from somewhere i know. it’s interesting to think of how these authority figures perceive their power as burdens, how the prince doesn’t want to become king but is forced into the role, how inheritances, even the ones that favour you, can feel like shackles around your neck.
but this kind of sympathetic view of the antagonists and the wrong-doers in mdzs leaves a bitter taste in my mouth because time and again, we have been shown how these sect leaders are blissfully happy to reap the fruits of their inherited power and generational wealth and are the ones most protected by the system. jiang cheng was perfectly fine being the sect leader by default and his grievance was moreso that wei wuxian wasn’t around to be his subordinate. the less that is said about jin guangshan the better. even lan xichen’s troubles didn’t come from him holding power but from his prolonged semi-wilful ignorance regarding jin guangyao. nie mingjue, while alive, used his influence to make his voice heard and condemned the wens because that was his unshakeable opinion on the matter.
now, this isn’t to say all the sect leaders were the same brand of callous and incompetent. yes, they had their problems. yes, their positions didn’t automatically make them immune to harm. but they were not the poor little burdened leaders with “pragmatic” point of views, trying to keep their boats afloat.
the ones with their hands tied were these: the lower classes in the pyramid. the ones who relied on the clans for shelter and food. the civilians whose requests for help were denied by the cultivation sects. the wen remnants who couldn’t do anything to save themselves. wen qing and wen ning. wei wuxian, whose every avenue of help was closed. mianmian. and even, imo, lan wangji.
there’s another similar notion towards wei wuxian that because he was a subordinate and because he has lesser social standing, he had more “freedom”. what ass-backwards logic is this, to be honest? when has having lesser social status, political power and monetary resources given a person more freedom? more freedom would mean that wei wuxian could do anything he wanted and go unquestioned. more freedom would mean that he would be able to practice the ghostly path without every second person accusing him of demonic activities. you know who had more freedom? the nie sect! their resentful energy dabbling went unquestioned because they had more freedom, they were protected by the reputation and might of their clan. nie mingjue’s hypocritical stance went unquestioned because he had freedom, precisely because he had more power. wei wuxian having a big personality, being flirtatious and not being a picture-perfect version of properness (he had good manners regardless) is not having more freedom. if he had that personality and no one accused him of being arrogant and if it wasn’t used against him as means to sully his reputation, then yes, that would be true freedom. this last part is probably redundant but hope the point of it was relayed. just because wei wuxian’s able to authentically be himself despite the backlash he receives for it does not make his social standing somehow a more advantageous position to be in compared to the literal leaders of the cultivation world.
in conclusion, the sect leaders did not have their hands tied by some inherent circumstance, their thrones of power were not ill-begotten curses they were trying to escape from but all the tying was done by them and their ropes which they gleefully tied around the necks of the wens to silence them forever. and if that sentence makes you uncomfortable, great. because that’s the reality of what these people did.
Hopefully you don’t mind that I ended up downloading Heart’s Courage back when I was on my, what, sixth re-read (before knowing you were going to private it, actually) and I still re-read it every so often and it’s still as mind blowing as ever. Idk if/when you plan to repost it, but I just wanted you to know thatI still adore it and it’s still constantly on my mind 💜💜
No worries! I always love your messages, and I put the message out so that people who wanted to download it could do so! I am in the last year of college right now, and I have suddenly gotten really swamped with dissertations and stuff, so I have not been able to do what I want with hc yet - I really hope once all the work slows down i will be able to get back to it!
I am so so grateful for your messages, it gives me a lot of joy knowing that someone loved one of my fics so much! 🩵
"Treat them like people" is probably the biggest lesson we learn from the novel when it comes to Wei Wuxian
He is comfortable around spirits and the dead because he treats them with the same respect and gentleness he would any living person.
He is able to get along very well with children and the youth because he treats them with the same kindness and decency he would a grown adult, never looking down on them and instead patiently guiding them to learn things about the world and themselves.
He sympathizes with the Wen remnants' suffering because he's seen firsthand they have not been complicit to the war and has decided to extend to them the same kindness he received, thus treating them like individuals and not a mass representing Wen Ruohan.
No matter how insignificant, unsightly or scary something or someone might be, Wei Wuxian has always granted them respect and showed no disgust or disdain where it was not warranted.
i will always appreciate that mxtx, intentionally (more likely) or unintentionally subverted the expectation of “humans always focus on the negative” sharply off the cliff edge and made wei wuxian a complete antithesis of that sentiment, wherein, he seems to almost always decisively ignore the negatives (after he has processed them in some capacity) and focus on the positive. it’s like amidst the dark, stormy, cloudy mire of his life, he always manages to find the silver lining and amplify it enough that its weight outdoes the worst experiences he suffers through. you could call it a coping mechanism but i honestly think it’s a different but just as valid fundamental outlook on life. wei wuxian has such an undercurrent of optimism about him and none of it stems from naïveté or ignorance or a sheltered life. it’s that wei wuxian can live through a life of loss and grief and unfairness and still find it in himself to be happy, to hope, to live. it’s that despite everything, he can be optimistic. that’s why it matters so much. that’s why i think it’s such a beautiful piece of characterisation–and a very grounded one at that. it doesn’t feel cheaply done. wei wuxian’s emotions don’t feel paper-thin. his disregard for the negatives only adds to his complexity, instead of taking away from it. and it just makes me think that if this guy, if wei “cultivation world’s biggest enemy” wuxian can find happiness once more, what excuse do we have to not make an effort to achieve the same?
i like that mdzs is actually not a tragedy. a tragedy would have ended at wei wuxian’s first life with no one but the antagonists getting some semblance of an happily ever after. but mdzs is unique because it gives a chance of healing and growth after the tragedy, after the heartbreak, after the soul-crushing grief. if wei wuxian had never come back to life, almost every character would have been worse off. jin ling would continue to be an angry teenager who’d become an angry adult while having authority and power he wouldn’t be able to handle. jiang cheng’s thirst for revenge would remain and worsen and become uglier and many more would fall victim to his animosity against perceived demonic cultivators. lan wangji’s mourning wouldn’t ever end. sizhui wouldn’t reunite with the man who’d he once thought of as a father and he wouldn’t reunite with his uncle and he maybe wouldn’t even learn of his true past until much much later. jgy wouldn’t be as easily exposed and lan xichen would remain blind to the wrongdoings of his sworn brother. maybe nie huaisang would still find his vengeance but it would have to be another way, a messier way. in general, the resentment of many people would continue to fester––there would be no reality checks for the cultivation clans as they did during the second siege (not that their collective shitty behaviour was corrected, but atleast there was some reckoning involved.) the history would still be the winner’s and the wronged parties would be continued to be vilified. but wei wuxian does come back and that kickstarts every single character’s journey once again. his resurrection throws a wrench into the complacency of tragedy and makes the characters hope again. i like mdzs because it is about second chances. because it doesn’t succumb to the absolute narrative of ‘why do good people always suffer?’ by giving the protagonists an ending that is not perfect but an ending that is rewarding, despite everything. i like mdzs because it is not trying to sell you a tragedy and deliberately play with your emotions but a story about hope, about betterment, about renewal. the second chance may seem like the one wei wuxian got, but in truth it is a second chance for every single character and some rightfully learn to be better and get better endings while some stick to their ways and for them, even a third or fourth chance wouldn’t be enough. i like mdzs because it tells you that yes, tragedies happen and yes they are allowed to deeply affect you but you can move on some day and you can find happiness again and you can live your life as if you were reborn, even if it’s just metaphorically.
it’s the way jiang cheng could not accept yanli and wei wuxian’s sacrifices, the way he could not fathom their selflessness because each of their actions were viewed by him through a very self-centric lens–in that, how does wei wuxian taking a stand for the remaining wens affect him, affect jiang cheng? how does yanli giving up her life for wei wuxian affect him, affect jiang cheng? it’s always about him, his feelings, his anger, his grief, his sense of abandonment. the problem here is that yeah, he loved his sister and yes, he did care for wei wuxian but what are these words worth when he could not allow them to make their own choices and respect those choices? what does it mean that he’d rather try to slash wen ning’s corpse and throw the wens under the bus because he doesn’t want wei wuxian to remain in the burial mounds and see what comes after? what does it mean that jiang cheng could not digest yanli’s sacrifice and never bothered to tell jin ling about the truth of his mother’s death, letting her son continue to hate the man she gave up her life for, out of love at that?
jiang cheng never respected what was most important to wei wuxian and clung to his idea of what he thought would be best for wei wuxian. thing is, if wei wuxian had backed out, had left the wens, in some impossible hypothetical universe––he would never be able to live with himself again. saving and supporting the wens was extremely important to wei wuxian. similarly, if yanli ever got a do-over, she would still save wei wuxian and give up her life because that is what she believed in, that is what her love for him compelled her to do. and in both instances, jiang cheng could not let go of his own reactionary emotions to their decisions to respect what these decisions represented.
he spit on both their sacrifices: let the lies about yanli’s death breed hatred for wei wuxian and led the siege to the burial mounds to kill the very people wei wuxian risked his life to protect. and for both these instances, the fandom has spoken ad nauseam about how it’s understandable for jiang cheng to feel abandoned, that he is always “left behind”. but did he ever have the courage to truly stick by them? stick by them, even in memory, even in their ideals, even in their last living and dying wishes?
another thing that is simply amazing about wei wuxian is that he doesn’t give a fuck about hoarding the knowledge he attains. in the cultivation world where clans jealously hold their resources close and have techniques unique to their families because progress is meant for them and theirs–wei wuxian utterly breaks the mould with his inventions. the products of his genius are spread far and wide and his way of doing things is disseminated within the cultivation society as crucial pieces of information. the spirit attraction flag and the compass are used not only by the clans but also the rogues–the bottom most people in their hierarchy. all of them benefit from wei wuxian’s knowlege in a way that the clans are simply incapable of replicating because they would never allow their own methods to leave the boundaries of their clans. and when wei wuxian is back, he takes to teaching instantly and has no qualms against sharing both his experiences and hard-earned wisdom with the juniors and i think it’s important to note that he has literally no affiliation to them prior to meeting them, except jin ling. he doesn’t know sizhui is a-yuan, he just knows they’re lans and later the boys he leads at yi city belong to several different clans–clans that were responsible for his own death and the death of the wen remnants, mind you. but wei wuxian would never make the children bear the sins of their forefathers, of course, just that painting the background helps in understanding how open and willing wei wuxian is about sharing his knowledge with others. it’s very lovely, really. the cultivation society only took from wei wuxian but he only ever gave them back.
Real question: if jiang fengmian took wwx in as a repayment to his life debt to cssr then why should wwx owe a life debt to jiangs anyway? If you think about it jfm, madame yu and jc literally guilt tripped him into life time servitude, didn't they? So wwx doesn't owe all that much to the jiangs, does he now?
Oh that would make jc an even bigger asshole cuz he owes wwx SO MUCH more than he can even imagine and if wwx or wen ning ever asks for repayment this guy will really have no other choice than to give up everything huh lol
Interesting how he unreasonably blames wwx for the deaths of jiangs and yanli even tho wwx wasn't really at fault here so he could justify his own wrong actions and escape accountability.
I say it here on another topic, but I don’t think Jiang Fengmian rescued Wei Wuxian due to the life debt he owed to the boy’s mother but because he was their friend. I think the life debt might have genuinely not occurred to him when he went on a search for their son. But at the same time, because the life debt never occurred to him, Jiang Fengmian ended up unwittingly trying (and succeeding) to recreate with his son and his friends’ son the same inherently unequal relationship that he had with said friends, transferring that sense of debt to their son, instead.
Jiang Fengmian as part of the gentry is able to live life and commit to actions irrespective of debt, which mostly led to good outcomes (giving an orphan a home and education) as opposed to Jiang Cheng who does the same exact thing with negative consequences (murdering war refugees and unrelated civilians). But it also means that the debt that Jiang Fengmian is able to cast off due to social hierarchy becomes someone else’s responsibility to bear, and of course that someone else will be the servant’s son.
Yet neither could they defend themselves: the teachings of the Gusu Lan Clan were extremely strict, and it was an unbreachable taboo to raise a hand against an ordinary person, who could not fight back.
—Chapt. 4: Feral III, fanyiyi
Word? Cause:
Back then, during the first siege of Burial Mound, Jin GuangShan led the LanlingJin Sect, while Jiang Cheng led the YunmengJiang Sect; Lan QiRen led the GusuLan Sect, while Nie MingJue led the QingheNie Sect.
Also the absolute gut wrenching angst of Wei Wuxian returning to the place that almost killed him for the Wens is just...
Do you think he could sleep, for the first few nights there? Do you think he could sleep at all? How did he come to terms with the place that once was his darkest moment becoming his home?
He is so good, and so selfless - he is willing to go to any lengths to do the right thing, to help the innocent, to protect the weak, and I love that about him most.
We as a fandom need to talk more about how Wei Wuxian changed the Burial Mounds. In the beginning of the story, we are explicitly told this is a place that will kill you dead and leave nothing behind.
"Look at the dark air. Tsk tsk tsk, the hostile energy is strong, isn’t it? And the resentful energy is thick, isn’t it? Even us at the Wen Sect weren’t able to do anything about it. We could only surround it and prevent people from going in. This is still daytime. At night, really any—-thing can be found in there. When a living person goes in here, both the body and the soul, they cannot return, unable to get out for all of eternity."
- Wen Chao, Poisons, Chapter 60
But then of course, Wei Wuxian survives it. And then he returns, to this hell of a place that left him broken and bleeding, because he has no other choice, because the cultivation world is determined to kill innocents and they have no where else to go.
And within the three years that followed, he does what even the Wen Sect in their prime wasn't able to, and tames THE FUCKING BURIAL MOUNDS. The Wen Remnants start farming there, for crying out loud.
(I do think some of the taming started during when Wei Wuxian was first there, because they were able to enter the place without too much trouble.)
By the time the siege happens, people could walk in and out of the place, and it no longer carries with it the horror it once did.
Even after the siege, with Wei Wuxian dead, the clans are able to remain there, loot the place, and set up prevention measures against Wei Wuxian potentially coming back.
The various clans set one hundred and twenty stone beasts on top of LuanZang Hill and initiated frequent soul-summoning rituals, followed by heightened vigilance and searches for strange occurrences from all over the world.
- Prologue, Chapter 1
And then, during the second siege, we again see the clans easily enter the place and throw around their ridiculous allegations.
MXTX shows that Wei Wuxian is a genius in many ways, of course, but this is one that makes me love him so much - with sheer ingenuity and willpower, he made a home out of a hellscape.
