Mostly me fangirling, always about YiZhan (they left me no choice), often enough about MDZS/The Untamed, BBC's Merlin, Captive Prince. Still mentally in Hogwarts || My ships include YiZhan, WangXian, Merthur, and Drarry || If anyone wants to know, my ao3 is https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandfaces/works || @YiBabylover on Twitter
XZS posting pairs of movie tickets at 10:30 (YiZhan) for the first two days of Yibo's new movie was such a proud husband gesture that I had to wonder whether the pattern would have continued every day during Yibo's roadshow if Xiao Zhan's "Where Dreams Begin" director hadn't suddenly died.
I wonder no more.
Today at 10:30 (YiZhan), on the 28th (love Bo day), XZS suddenly dropped a bomb of a post, posting 18 (yibo) photos, 8 (bo) of them styled as movie tickets.
It's like Xiao Zhan realized that Yibo had been sending all these loving missives during his road trip and he owed him a letter in return. This post marked "the seventh day of the lunar new year" (大年初七), so why are there 8 movie tickets? Why not 7 movie tickets? Or 7 pairs? Or the 3 pairs of tickets that weren't sent during the last three days of Yibo's road show? You just wanted to kadian 8? Okay, fair.
And 18 total photos? Yibo photos? That's... a lot of photos, a visual bomb of photos.
So loud, Xiao Zhan. So loud.
Yibo had to have noticed, right? Because YBO posted a response at 12:13 (你爱一战, ni ai YiZhan, "you love YiZhan"), as if to say, "Wow, Zhan-ge, you really love YiZhan, huh?"
Oh look, YBO also notes that this post is to mark "the seventh day of the lunar new year" (大年初七), just as XZS's post did. It also talks about going back to work, also as XZS's post did. And there's that starry-eyed emoji with the flower, which ended every "Hidden Blade" road show post.
Finally, doesn't that third photo look a little different, just a bit brighter?
I wish they'd gotten more of a break together this CNY, but it's lovely to see these little symbols of the connection they have, no matter how far apart they may be.
wei wuxian is not an oblivious fool, there is a deeper reason he is ignorant of lan wangji's feelings; in this essay i will...
Disclaimer: all of this is just my personal interpretation.
TLDR; Wei Wuxian believes he is unworthy of love, that it is hard to love him, and he doesn’t want to burden anyone with himself.
There are three main traumas that are probably so deeply ingrained in the fiber of his being that Wei Wuxian might not even realize that he's carrying that emotional baggage with him. As always, these three issues stem from his formative experiences as a child since he was roughly six years old to well into his teenage years.
The sudden death of his parents when he was only around six years old.
Having to fend for himself as an orphan on the streets of Yiling for almost three years until Jiang Fengmian found him.
Being adopted by the Jiangs and then becoming the 'reason' for a lifelong conflict within the family.
One. Sudden loss of parents.
The death of Wei Wuxian's mother and father was sudden. As per canon, they died during a night hunt unexpectedly. Given that his father, Wei Changze, had left the Jiang clan to elope with his mother, Cangse Sanren, who was a rogue cultivator with no affiliation to any clan or sect (as she was an orphan herself and had left Baoshan Sanren's mountain and thus could not return there), this left Wei Wuxian quite literally, orphaned and homeless.
No matter how much one tries to understand and accept such a misfortune as just that – a misfortune – and not something that was their fault or something they deserved; the baggage stays, usually in the form of abandonment issues.
The abandonment issues could lead to not wanting to get too attached to people for fear of being abandoned again. It also develops the harmful mentality that all people will leave eventually because he has bad luck or because he doesn’t deserve that happiness or because he is just not meant to have such blessings.
Two. Living as a street orphan.
Wei Wuxian spent around three years, from the age of six to nine years old, as an orphan on the streets of Yiling — fending for himself, diving into dumpsters for scraps of food, surviving every season in his tattered clothes, fighting off dogs that probably thought he could be their next meal because surely such a feeble child wouldn't live longer than a few more hours in the frigid snow.
Such trauma, especially at that young age, is bound to leave deep scars in someone's psyche. Trauma manifests in different manners; loss of memory is one such way. People who have experienced trauma are known to either block out those memories entirely or disassociate from a large chunk of them.
Wei Wuxian jokes that he has always had bad memory. But it's true. He does. And one of the reasons is his childhood trauma. And now, because of that, he doesn't remember a lot of his childhood, only vaguely remembering a few bare details. The baggage of not remembering his parents and what a happy family is like, makes it harder for him to believe he can have that – because what you can’t even envision, you can’t begin to believe in. He just doesn’t remember what unconditional love and a harmonious family truly felt like for him and so can never truly reach out to take that for himself.
Three. Adoption into an unhappy home.
His adoption into the Jiang family was riddled with issues like conflict with the maternal figure, conflict between both parental figures, rumors and gossip mills, being better than the actual future clan leader and always being compared to him, being taunted by the “son of a servant” label anytime he was deemed wrong or caused an inconvenience.
No matter how much he says he didn’t care or no matter how much he smiles and shrugs, such an environment still has an impact. Especially for someone like Wei Wuxian who is already carrying the previously mentioned baggage.
Wei Wuxian always felt like a guest in the Jiang residence and a burden on the Jiang family and therefore felt like he owed them for everything. His actions make it very clear that he feels that he needs earn a place in the clan, in the house, in the family. He thinks he needs to be of value, to be useful, in order to receive their love and affection. Sometimes, he thinks his use is just to be a punching bag for Jiang-furen. And he was okay with that too.
This is not to say that Wei Wuxian didn't consider them his family. He did. It's just that his definition and understanding of his family by this point was already torn and twisted.
Important side note: Wei Wuxian did truly, from the bottom of his heart, love Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli. He always tried to forge a strong bond with them, partially because he genuinely loved them and saw them as siblings. But partially also because he didn’t want the conflict to pass onto the next generation and continue. As the Yunmeng trio grew up together, they truly did form that bond. Wei Wuxian truly did allow himself to accept Yanli's unconditional motherly love, to rely on her, to make demands of her. He let his inner child, that had been deprived of all these things, reach out to Yanli and hold onto her tight. Which is why the fate of the Yunmeng trio was the saddest part of this whole saga. And also why, when it all went downhill for Wei Wuxian, his shijie's death was the final trigger for his own.
thus, therefore, thence...
Wei Wuxian had a hard time accepting people’s love.
Speaking from experience, childhood abuse and trauma does that to a person. You feel like a burden when you want something, when you express something, when you need something. You don’t want to push your luck and try and get more than what they’re giving. You don’t believe they will stay. You basically apologize for your entire existence if you feel they are getting inconvenienced by you and you go out of your way to eradicate the problem you think you are the cause of.
A lot of Wei Wuxian’s insecurities are embedded so deep within his soul and are so ingrained in his mentality that even he doesn’t know it sometimes. Wei Wuxian looks up to Lan Wangji, he respects him, he likes him, he wants his attention, he wants his friendship, maybe more. But he never truly acknowledges what else he might want from him or what else Lan Wangji might be willing to give.
He isn’t oblivious. He is ignorant.
Oblivious means that he is aware of it and actively ignores it. Whereas the latter means he is just genuinely unaware. Because Wei Wuxian absolutely cannot fathom the possibility of being the recipient of such love, that he could have the chance to have a real family again; because he isn’t worthy of any of it. He is just paying his debts and making sure he does the right thing, helping others and being of some use. Anything beyond that is something Wei Wuxian has forgotten how to believe in, how to reach out for, how to accept.
In conclusion, Wei Wuxian isn’t some dumb boy who is oblivious to something that is very obvious (allegedly, but that’s for another essay). He just simply has too much baggage and trauma to think something like that could even exist for him to just reach out and take.
Thankfully, by the end of the story...he does realize this. They both do.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Go stream every MDZS adaptation!
孤鴻號外野，翔鳥鳴北林。
徘徊將何見？憂思獨傷心。
— 魏晋·阮籍 《咏怀八十二首·其一》
The lone swan goose wails in the wilderness,
The flying birds call in the northern forests.
What’s there to see in the lingering?
Worried thoughts and a solitary, wounded heart.
— Ruan Ji (210-263 AD) “82 Songs of Dispositions, No. 1”
孤雁不飲啄，飛鳴聲念羣。
誰憐一片影，相失萬重雲？
— 唐·杜甫 《孤雁》
The lone swan goose doesn’t drink or eat,
Flying, wailing its longing for its flock.
Who would pity that piece of shadow,
Lost in the million layers of clouds?
— Du Fu (712-770AD) “The Lone Swan Goose”
Happy New Year everyone! 🎉🧧
Below the cut, I’m offering my interpretation of Like the Sunlight, based on the lyrics and Dd’s performance on NYE. Unlike other interpretations I’ve worked on, I’m keeping this one free from the influence of what I’ve found on the Chinese internet, whether they are interpretations from fellow fans, explanations from those involved in the production, or reviews by the media—for reasons I shall explain afterwards.
This is strictly the product of my brain, my senses, based on the words, the stage art, the choreography.
As a warning of sorts, my interpretation isn’t one of positivity, or even, one of blissful happiness. It also isn’t candy-ish. However, I do believe this song, this performance is deeply personal for Dd, revealing, sharing a facet of him that with his fame, he can no longer say in words. And in doing so with music and movements, and on one of China’s biggest stages no less, he’s letting us see that side of him, and fulfilling what he sang in Nian:
為溫暖 也為尋常的人間 Stand up.
For warmth, and for the ordinary humankind, stand up.
(Under the cut: Yes, this meta is also very, very long. :) )
You know, their brands don’t have to go so hard - but I LOVE it when they do!
Kai Xiao Zao celebrated the 4th anniversary of XZ’s brand collaboration with a rainbow colored building (REALLY? Rainbows? 😏 Was that necessary? SO SUS)… Also the wording is (forgive my translation skills) “Four years together, things in life go on as usual, live just like the beginning”. Anybody else thinks that sounds an awful lot like the wording/themes of Yibo’s new song??
Tom Riddle might've been a bright student and became an immensely powerful dark wizard later, but thinking he learned all his spells in his younger years and then stopped developing his magic would be very remiss. And we know how much practice new spells require, even from a powerful and intelligent wizard, so can we just stop for a second and imagine Lord Voldemort, noseless and red-eyed, waving his wand with bared teeth to try and get that motherfucking new spell to work, and dON'T YOU DARE COME IN, WORMTAIL, I DO WELL KNOW HOW CRUCIO WORKS--
Q: If you could have a superpower, what would you like?
A: Invisibility. So others can't see me.
SDOC 3 Hotpot Episode ;
“I am not free. Not free right now. If I’m invisible I can go do whatever I want. I can go have fun. That is I don’t need to wear a mask when I’m out in the streets.”
Vogue Interview ;
Q: What superpower do you want to have the most?
A : Invisibility. I feel like I can run around everywhere and no one would be able to find me, that feels good!
Tianjin Fanmeet interview ;
Q: what superpower do u want?
A: Invisibility. Sometimes, I want to disappear, be hidden away
Sometimes I remember that in the german edition, Laurent says "Schätzchen" for "sweetheart" and I can't explain why but that immediately makes him that weird but also cool aunt who wears a fur coat and too much lipstick and will always sneak you some money during family gatherings.
ellievsbear
stormborns
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
prguitarman
dailybridgerton
discoholicmusic
romaincrisis
turnnoffyourmind
