How does Lan Wangji text? (inspired by a real life text convo with @paradife-loft)
Unlike the only other two people in his life texting him (guess who, the answer will (not) shock you!), he uses fully standard capitalization, grammar, and punctuation.
This is not, however, because he feels it would be improper to write otherwise. He’s perfectly aware that texting uses a different register from other forms of written communication. It’s just that most texting platforms autocorrect certain types of capitalization and punctuation, and to his eye, it looks frustratingly inconsistent to not finish the job himself.
This is unlike Wei Wuxian, who not only refuses to punctuate and capitalize and in texting, but actually backspaces and fixes what his phone auto-corrects, because his painstaking corrections and compulsive texting should look breezy, damnit.
But now the more important question. Does Lan Wangji text with emoji???
He does!
But not like most people his age. If you’ve read anything by Actual Internet Linguist Gretchen McCulloch ( @allthingslinguistic) on the subject, you’ll know that most people who grew up texting and with online communication (or who started using it later but who think of the internet and texting as one of their primary modes of communication with their friends) use emoji to supplement their conversation, not just as visuals, but as meta-text.
That is, they use emoji in similar ways as people use gesture, facial expression, and intonation in in-person conversation.
So Wei Wuxian (and most other young cultivators) uses all sorts of emoji to convey how he wants his words to come across in text - lots of faces, hearts, and exclamatory emoji, for example.
But Lan Wangji, who in person speaks with a rather flat intonation, keeps one hand behind his back and the other at his side, and doesn’t go for easily visible facial expressions, doesn’t use emoji to supplement mood at all. He never uses face-based emoji, like smilies, and almost never uses hearts.
Instead, he employs a style you might be familiar with from some of your older relatives who use emoji like little illustrations. They can be pleasant to look at, so he’ll incorporate them, but they’re not meant to underlie the way he’s expressing himself.
All this to say, here’s a pretty standard text conversation between Lan Wangi and Wei Wuxian:
wwx: lan zhan u up???
wwx: lan ZHAN📢 are you IGNORING ME😱 😵 ????!!!!?!??
wwx: lan zhaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn
wwx: won’t u please 🙏 do me the honor of writing this poor one back 💔 💔💔 even a simple word I am not worthy 😣 😢
The Yi City Crew text each other wildly differently than they would have texted others before, because the Yi City Crew consists of one blind person, one person pretending to be blind, and one person who is highly motivated to keep that first blind person happy. And then later on one sighted person who really isn’t texting anyone joins the party.
That means no emoji and minimal punctuation as Xiao Xingchen (and usually A-Qing) use voice-to-text and screen-reader apps and Xue Yang texts but only messages that won’t be impossible for Xiao Xingchen to read.
It’s possible he’s been horrible and sends A-Qing texts with lots of emojis that the screenreader has to read out (”knife smirking face skull and crossbones knife knife knife”) but jokes on him, A-Qing just reads them anyways.
But here’s a closer look at their individual styles:
Xiao Xingchen, before he gave up his eyes, texted like my mom. Maybe like your mom too! He didn’t grow up texting, there was zero cell service on the Celestial Mountain, and he definitely started out signing his texts to Song Lan, “love, Xingchen” but he got out of that habit pretty fast by getting used to the way Song Lan texted him.
He uses emoji more as little illustrations rather than integrated parts of the conversation. They don’t fill the same role as gestures or expression or intonation because he just never got the hang of them.
He lets autocorrect do the work of capitalization and punctuation but doesn’t fuss much with standard grammar in his texts. He is in the habit of sending long blocks of text, rather than breaking it up in different messages too.
Xiao Xingchen is a Slow Texter and worse, sometimes if you send him a text and he doesn’t feel like texting back, he’ll just call. He even leaves voice messages. It’s ridiculous.
Song Lan grew up texting, also doesn’t bother with standard capitalization and punctuation, but while he uses emoji fluently (but sparingly), he doesn’t mess with emoji or standardization (or lack thereof) for aesthetic reasons.
Song Lan texts a lot because he does not want to speak to you on the phone, but they’re also pretty short. Sometimes, Xiao Xingchen answers his cell for him.
Here’s an example conversation:
XXC: I saw this tree yesterday that had lichen hanging from a branch so delicately that it looked like some spirit had woven a lace sleeve for it with the end of the branch peeking out like a wrist and hand. It was lovely Zichen. You would have enjoyed it. I hope you’re well. Miss you. 🌲❄️
SL: 😊
Xue Yang would have texted people constantly if he had many people to text. He throws emoji out there like crazy with no sense of what’s appropriate. He doesn’t wait for people to respond, he just texts several messages at a time, and then sometimes he never writes you back after all that either.
Like Wei Wuxian, he backspaces autocorrect because autocorrect just doesn’t get him, you know? If he wanted that capitalized or with correct spelling, he would have done it himself.
It’s unclear if he’s using emoji as a seamless way to make up for gesture, intonation, and expression, (because he really is that expressive) or if he’s just throwing them all out there for the fun of it. Probably a mix of them both.
An example conversations:
XY: ⏰⏰⏰ the fuck where are you been waiting 4ever know ur not 2busy4me 🙄
XY: on a schedule here
XY: lianfang-zun~~~~ 😘 big brother is waiting 🧟🧟
XY: guess I gotta come find you 🤷 1sec chifeng-zuns heavy 🧟 gotta get him 💪
JGY: STAY WHERE YOU ARE. I’m coming.
XY: read ya loudnclear 🤫 cant wait 2 see u 😇🔪
and another
XY: yiling laaaaaozuuuu ☠️ 🔪 🧟 🤩 😍 heard u were back !!!! ✨🎉 🎉
XY: huuuuuuuuge fan of ur work 🙌 ☢️ 🙌 gotta favor to ask 😘😘😘🍆🗡️💓💓
WWX: ... how the fuck you get this number/???????
A-Qing never had a phone until Xiao Xingchen got her one and usually pretends to be blind, so she doesn’t use emoji. She does use all caps and extra letters and abbreviations, which is pretty strange for someone who’s not supposed to rely on visuals and it sometimes wreaks havoc with the screen readers. But neither Xiao Xingchen nor Xue Yang knows enough about that to get suspicious, Xiao Xingchen because he never feels super comfortable with his cell anyway and Xue Yang because he doesn’t use screen readers.
They all use pretty standard spelling in general though between voice to text and screen readers.
A sample convo in their group chat:
XY: hey daozhang busy tonite?
XXC: No why is there something you need me to do?
XY: more like someone
AQ: OMG did you FROGET IM HERE????? ffs
XY: didn’t forget
XY: why would you think I forgot?
AQ: GROSSSSSS
XY: fucking deal with it not everything’s about you
AQ: you’re not supposed to fucking swear in front of me! daozhang is reading this!!!!!!
XY: what, who’s fucking swearing? I’m not swearing shit.
Daozhang is not, in fact, reading this, because he left his phone in his room mid-conversation and forgot to check it until hours later.
Honestly, Xue Yang is just mourning the waste of his ability to use obscene emoji to best effect, but, you know, worth it.
As a bonus, here are their names in each other’s contacts:
I’d love to see your take on the juniors texting, and maybe conversations with their parents? I imagine Sizhui texts very differently with Jingyi and with LWJ!
Absolutely!
So the thing about the Juniors is that they don’t actually text with emoji as much as they use gifs and stickers, because that, in my experience working with middle and high schoolers, is what the Youth do these days.
(Actual teens reading this, please feel free to correct me - it’s possible it’s a cultural/geographical thing and not just age. The teens I was working with weren’t texting in English, for example.)
HOWEVER. I am sticker illiterate and gifs don’t work the same way on tumblr, so let’s all hold hands and pretend they Juniors are all using emoji. Ready?
Great
Let’s start with Lan Jingyi! We’ve already seen him take over the Gusu Lan official twitter.
His texting is a little different. For example, uses emoji more to express himself, to make up for lost volume, expression, and gesture, and less to replace or emphasize certain words.
He doesn’t have a real texting aesthetic, because autocorrect exists, and while he would prefer to be cool and text in all lower-case letters and leave off most punctuation, he’s in a hurry, has a lot to say, and doesn’t want to backspace.
He has too many words!!! And besides, exclamation marks are very important to him.
And by the way, Lan Jingyi texts everyone the same way. Which is pretty audacious of him. Here’s a sample text:
LJY: Wei-qianbei, when are you picking up your donkey?
LJY: He’s loud and he stinks 🤢
LJY: You here yet??????????
WWX: how does everyone keep getting this number
LJY: 🙄
LJY: HGJ gave it to Sizhui who gave it to me
LJY: come collect your donkey 😒
Jin Ling wishes he texted with the same easy-breezy attitude of Lan Jingyi. But no, he has to glare every text to submission. He needs to make it look cool. He would never be caught dead with a capital letter, some things should be misspelled, and he will wrestle autocorrect into submission if he needs to.
His emoji choices are carefully curated and he spends a long time picking the right one.
He... takes a while to get back to people. On the bright side, he comes off a lot chiller in texts than in real life, where he doesn’t have the luxury of taking ten minutes to craft a response.
JC: WHERE ARE YOU you can’t just keep RUNNING OFF
JL: 🙄 omg jiujiu im not five
JC: Just see if you reach 25 with that attitude rolling your eyes at me!
JL: 🤷🏻♂️
JL: omg its just emoji you cant see my eyes 🙄🙄🙄
The only one person he’s more respectful to in his texts is his xiao-shushu.
JGY: Welcome home, A-Ling! 🏵️
JGY: I trust you enjoyed your say at Yunmeng
JGY: I hope to see you after supper to go over your lessons
JL: will be there
JGY: 😊
Ouyang Zizhen texts constantly, first of all. Especially from Baling, he misses his friends! He’s a social kid!
He uses lots of emoji, but mostly just the face ones to better express himself, though sometimes he dabbles with hearts and other emoji that connote feeling. He has a lot of those.
He also extends words, adding lots of letters, not ones that necessarily audibly make sense, but just to show the enthusiasm. Like Jin Ling, he doesn’t use capitalization, for the aesthetic.
OZZ: misssinggggg you guyysszzz 😭😭😭
JL: whos you guys? did you mean to text the group chat? just me here 😩
OZZ: then i miss you jl!!!!
[cue astonished face at his own phone, ten minutes later a response]
JL: miss you too i guess
OZZ: 💕💕💕
With his dad, though, he cuts out the emoji, they honestly confuse him.
Sect Leader Ouyang: Didn’t I tell you to get back here... Stop messing around...
OZZ: omg dad conserve your spiritual energyyyyyyy c u l8r
Lastly we have the best boy of all! Lan Sizhui!
He’s a texting codeswitcher, easily changing it up to match the register of whomever he’s texting.
So we have him with Lan Wangji, who he texts twice every day, once good morning and once good night, with the same words and variations on the same emoji. Because Lan Wangji uses emoji primarily as little illustrations, rather than offering metatextual information, Lan Sizhui does the same with him:
LWJ: Good morning, Sizhui 🌅
LSZ: Good morning, Hanguang-jun 🥣
LWJ: Good night, Sizhui 🌙
LSZ: Good night, Hanguang-jun 🛌
Lan Wangji just likes to check in on him.
But with Wei Wuxian, he’s emoji user extraordinaire, forgoing words for pictures, though again, he’s less likely to instigate the texting:
WWX: a-yuannnnnn 💕 how’s my favorite little 🥕 doing?
WWX: big tragedy did u know theres no radish emoji 😮😱😢 guess i’ll have to code one myself 😩🤓
LSZ: you can do it wei-qianbei!! 💪😎
WWX: !!!!😍😍😍🤗🤗✨
His default style, as seen with his friends, is light emoji usage, usually to demonstrate some sort of expression, emotion, or intonation, though generally the same few smilies. He doesn’t fight autocorrect and isn’t too concerned with the aesthetics of his texting.
One time Jin Ling started to make fun of him for including an unnecessary comma in a text and he got such a tongue lashing from Jingyi. The real reason he stopped doing that, though, is because Sizhui looked a little sad.
Here’s a bonus juniors group chat convo:
LSZ: Guys, it’s okay, I texted him - Hanguang-jun is on the way 😄
xue yang's texts to wwx made me giggle snort, thank you for that
I’m glad! Have some more!
unknown number: Your cultivation is undoubtedly impressive, but I’m concerned about the impact your methods will have on your health. I don’t blame and don’t judge, but if you have a choice, I urge you to consider against cultivating demonic energy 😊
wwx: uh, new phone...
unknown number: It is I ✨, Xiao Xingchen-daozhang 🙈
wwx: ...shishu?
unknown number: 🤣 🤣 🤣 jk jk jk, just fucking with u wei qian-BAE 😘😘 u go ahead and do u, totes a fan of that 😈 cultivation💀🧟 drop by ⚰️ city some time would love to see you 😍 🖤🖤🖤🍌compare notes 😏🗡️
I just went back and read all your Untamed texting posts and they are SO GREAT! Your post about JC's texting style made me wonder: Does LQR run the official Gusu Lan Sect twitter? If so, what does _that_ look like? :D :D :D
They are... well, they’re boring. They’re basically updates of the day’s schedule, and they’re almost always the same each day, because the schedule is almost always the same. He uses standard grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
There is exactly one emoji involved in the same places, each tweet. Here’s an example:
☁️ Meditation at chen hour in the meditation room. Lessons at si hour. Lunch at wei hour in the dining hall with leisure time to follow. Training at shen hour. Guest lecture in the lanshi at you hour. Supper in the dining hall at xu hour. Curfew at hai hour. ☁️
Every once in a while we get something like:
☁️ Welcome visiting students and disciples. We hope you find your time here informative and pleasant. Please take the time to review the Lan Sect disciplines as ignorance of the rules will not preclude punishment for breaking them. ☁️
In Lan Qiren’s defense, he was never trained to run their twitter. He always assumed Qingheng-jun would be the one to take on this heavy and illustrious task. He looks forward to passing it on to Lan Xichen asap.
if you ever want to do more "characters texting" posts please do, they are so accurate and good
Have some Jiang Cheng!
As I’m sure we all know, Jiang Cheng is very special! For so many reasons! One of them is that besides texting, he also runs the official Jiang Sect twitter. That means he has two different modes of emoji usage:
He actually does not text with emoji. It’s not that he doesn’t know how. He could be pretty fluent with them. He’s of the right age and generation to grow up with them, he understands that he would use them to suggest things about his intonation and expression and gestures.
It’s because he understands that that he doesn’t use them because Jiang Cheng has two settings. Angry and not angry right now.
If he’s angry, he’s not going to go around looking for emoji, people will take his anger less seriously and he demands to be taken seriously! Damnit.
When he’s not angry, he is paralyzed, because what if he’s going to come off the wrong way, what if he uses the wrong emoji, what if it looks stupid, fuck it, just no emoji for him, stakes too high, it would take too long to find the right one to express his non-anger, and at this point he’s getting pretty frustrated and about to enter anger mode anyway.
Like Wei Wuxian, he backspaces autocorrect constantly, because like hell is he trusting the machine to get it right. He tries to curate his tone, but just ends up with a lot of capslock, big surprise there.
Here’s a sample texting conversation one way text because Wei Wuxian doesn’t have reception wherever he happens to be right now, who knows, could be anywhere.
JC: WEI WUXIAN
JC: where the FUCK are you
JC: A-Jie is worried SICK
JC: you know what, don’t even think of coming back, I’ll break your legs
JC: I’m finishing the soup, NO DINNER SO DON’T COME BACK
[five minutes later]
JC: I left some soup for you in your room
JC: THE FUCK ARE YOU
Okay, but then there’s his official Jiang-zongzhu twitter account, and that’s his safe emoji space, because he tweets once a day, very similar things, with a curated choice of emoji, and people seem to like it.
He uses emoji there as, like, super hyped punctuation, sometimes replacing words.
Here’s a sample tweet:
Wen🐶s think they can destroy US 😯🤣 but they don’t know what YUNMENG JIANG 🍇 😈 is made of 💪😤 we give 💯 percent ALL THE TIME. Knock us down 🏚️? We REBUILD 🛠️👷 Time to 🏹 ☀️
Ok you gave us lwj and wwx texting but who's the other person lwj texts? I'm assuming lxc? What's his texting like?
It is indeed Lan Xichen!
Together, they text mostly to convey essential information when they’re apart and not so much to communicate just for fun. Lan Wangji will often not respond to his texts if he thinks he’ll be seeing him soon anyways. Lan Xichen doesn’t take it personally.
In fact, Lan Xichen’s communicative style will depend on who he’s writing. His texting Jin Guangyao is often long, dotted with emoji, much more verbose. They can be holding two conversations at a time, in two different registers.
With Nie Mingjue, the texts are shorter. They rarely text just to text, but a more practical communication can become excuses to check up on each other. Nie Mingjue does not fluently use emoji, but he likes it when Lan Xichen does.
Here’s what’s consistent:
Like Lan Wangji (and unlike Wei Wuxian), he doesn’t fight his phone’s autocorrect. He relies on it for standard capitalization, certain punctuation, and spelling. But unlike Lan Wangji he doesn’t feel the need to write his texts with full standard capitalization, spelling, and punctuation just to match the register of his phone’s autocorrect. He certainly doesn’t backspace autocorrections to make it all look more casual, the way Wei Wuxian does.
He uses emoji in a pretty standard sense for people who started texting young, to supplement his conversation and take the role that expression, gesture, and intonation usually do.
But he uses them more sparingly than most, and carefully. In person he monitors his expression and gestures, very aware of how he may be coming off to others, and that doesn’t change in his written communication too much.
Here are some examples of standard text conversations:
Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji:
LXC: See you in Caiyi in ten?
LWJ: Yes.
LXC: 👍
Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue
LXC: Huaisang came with an attendant...
LXC: Is this the one you were telling me about 😉
NMJ: Yes. Shut up
NMJ: Did you like the bowl?
LXC: Very much. Did you pick it out?
NMJ: I thought you’d like the style
LXC: ❤️❤️❤️
Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao
JGY: Er-ge I have to apologize again for my cousin
JGY I hope the wine wasn’t too unbearable
LXC: If you write me as my host, then as my host you already did all you could to dissuade him. If you write me as my friend, then you never have to apologize for the actions of others.
LXC: Were things okay with your father? He looked... 😬
JGY: I dealt with him
JGY: As a host, I should have been prepared for Zixun’s stunts.
JGY: As a friend I might have taken more drastic action
LXC: A-Yao...
LXC: I’m not interested in dealing with a Wei Wuxian of my own...
JGY: Your brother looked interested in dealing with him
LXC: 🤦🏻♂️
LXC: I know how you can make it up to me
JGY: ???
JGY: 👀
LXC: Sneak me into the private gardens and go on a walk with me
LXC: 🌸🌼🌺
JGY: 😍
JGY: I’ll come to take you in five
(JGY’s texting style hc’s come from @paradife-loft)
okay well now you've gotta do Yanli. and Jin Zixuan?
Okay. So.
Jiang Yanli? Pretty standard texter. She uses emoji both fluently in conversation as a metatextual replacement for gesture, intonation, and expression, and also sometimes just for the fun of it as little illustrations of what she’s saying or hearing. She does, however, stop using emoji as soon as a conversation is more formal, serious, or uncomfortable.
She lets autocorrect take care of punctuation and capitalization, but sometimes goes out of her way to capitalize things autocorrect doesn’t recognize.
She is a group-chatter extraordinaire, texting little things all the time to the Yunmeng sibs whatsapp and mediating things even there.
Here’s a sample convo there:
JYL: A-Cheng, I finished the soup you asked for 😊
WWX: !!!!!!!! 🍲🍲🍲 shijie 🤩😋😋
JC: Who said any of it was for you???
JYL: 😇 I made enough for everybody
WWX: 😍😍🙏🙏🙏🍲😘
Jin Zixuan is... well, you know how your parents or grandparents or bosses just don’t get texting etiquette? Nothing dramatic, but it’s off. They use ellipses in the wrong places. They uses periods that make things look angry. They use no emoji at all and then suddenly incomprehensible bursts of them that means you can never ever judge their tone?
That’s Jin Zixuan.
A sample conversation between the two of them:
JZX: Would you like to visit during the next hunt...
JZX: My mom wants you to come...
JYL: Sure?
JYL: Hunts aren’t my favorite but if your mother wants me to come
JZX: She does.
JYL: .Are you... irritated?
JZX: No.
JZX: 🏹⛰️🙏👹
JZX: See you there...
Jiang Yanli does not reply to this but she does show this convo to the perplexed and pissed Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian
