So I Just Woke From A Dream Where The Reason No One Can Find Baoshan Sanrens Mountain Is Because Its

so I just woke from a dream where the reason no one can find Baoshan Sanren’s mountain is because it’s the freaking Burial Mounds. That’s not odd at all, right?

Horror is waking up and realizing you had an assignment due at midnight.

But does he realize that Wei Wuxian is actually his age at this point? Just, the potential for Lan Wangji to angst over crushing on a junior, never fully realizing his brother’s Really Hot Friend is his age, then *leapfrogging* himself into senior year with them over the summer, because he really Wants That. Plus, looks good on that resume, Uncle. 

this idea started with this thought:

it would be extremely fucking funny if wei wuxian was lan xichen’s friend first

imagine if that’s how lan wangji meets him. that’s their introduction. the category wei wuxian is introduced to him as is “my brother’s friend” which puts him right there with nie mingjue.

in canon this is very good but slightly harder to finagle without being very au but you know where this is just very choice?

modern au.

how it happens is this

wei wuxian is a little genius and skips two grades when he’s young. on one hand, madame yu complains about jiang cheng not skipping any grades constantly, but on the other hand she can’t compare them so precisely because they’re talking different tests in different classes and for couple years at a time are even in different schools, which really cuts down on a lot of the tension between wei wuxian and jiang cheng.

this also means that wei wuxian is in the same class as jiang yanli

jiang yanli doesn’t have the energy to be jealous and is also much more gracious about accepting help. which means wei wuxian doesn’t let his sister get anything less than straight a’s in everything because he doesn’t want madame yu to yell at her for it.

when they’re all still young kids the jiangs move and the kids are enrolled in the same school as all our favorite people.

lan wangji is also a little genius but everyone’s very concerned about his social development and the potential damage skipping grades could do to it, so he stays right where he is. also in his class is jiang cheng, nie huaisang, mianmina, jin zixuan, wen ning, and meng yao who skipped one grade because he was worried skipping two would get him the wrong sort of attention.

but two years ahead of them is wei wuxian, jiang yanli, lan xichen, and nie mingjue. lan xichen initially befriended wei wuxian (to his best friend nie mingjue’s annoyance) because he was new and young and lan xichen didn’t want him to feel intimidated and alone. then someone talked shit to jiang yanli and wei wuxian cheerfully squared up and kicked their ass which horrified lan xichen while nie mingjue was delighted and decided maybe this kid isn’t too bad after all

this is also good because we still have wei wuxian struggling with his peer group. are his peers the kids his own age? or the kids he spends all day ever day with in class and has for years? cue an identity crisis, wash rinse repeat

anyway sort of on accident wei wuxian becomes best friends with lan xichen and nie mingjue. he’s friendly with the others but they are, well, his best friends’ little siblings, even if they’re the same age as him, so they don’t really hang out. nie huaisang comes over sometimes but wei wuxian tries to avoid him when he does because they’re actually decent friends but jiang cheng gets upset about not having one friend that doesn’t like wei wuxian better which is, you know, unfair but also a valid emotion so wei wuxian and nie huaisang just text constantly

the fun thing about lan xichen and nie mingjue is that they secretly love getting into shenanigans but have to be responsible older brothers about everything and good role models and whatever. wei wuxian can’t be bothered with any of that. so he’s constantly getting them into trouble that they’re delighted to be in and they all practice sparring at the nie studio and wei wuxian is friendly and fun and outgoing in a way that neither lan xichen and nie mingjue are. the three of them all balance each other out so well, softening the hard edges of the other two, and of course they’re all very beautiful and smart and kind in their own way, and well

the three of them are the popular kids, easily, which baffles all of them to varying degrees

(if jiang cheng is never asked “oh, are you wei wuxian’s brother?” again in his life it’ll be too soon)

so throughout all of this lan xichen goes over to the jiang’s and he and wei wuxian both spend a lot of time at the nie but because lan qiren is strict and not fun it’s not until the summer before their junior year that wei wuxian goes over to the lans

this is the first time lan wangji is meeting the boy who’s been his brother’s other best friend for years, since obviously he’s known nie mingjue since they were toddlers

and uh

holy shit

his brother never told him wei wuxian is hot

commence the mortifying ordeal of 1. being a freshman and 2. having a crush on your elder brother’s friend

Why would you leave these in the tags?

Do you have a recipe for huajuan? Those look so tasty

flour + water = dough

feel the amounts in your soul, but maintain roughly a proportion of 3:1

oh I almost forgot: yeast happens somewhere in there

how much? depends on the age of the yeast, the age of the day, and maybe your age as well

let rise in the sunlight so it tastes like joy

knead it for a bit so that it knows you love it too

iterate a few times

how many times? depends on the strength of the yeast, the passage of time, and your dwindling amounts of patience

at some point roll it out, smear oil, sprinkle salt and chopped green onion

roll up, slice, squoosh

steam for a time. twenty minutes perhaps? time is a construct and the clock face is laughing at me

@antebunny I am sorry, I forgot about why the Rebel Scanlations would be important. The only complete translation of the novel is from Rebel Scanlations. So that’s what most people are basing their understanding on. It has a lot of trouble with tone, as I stated before, including changing some subtext. The scene where Wei Wuxian wakes up and reads Mo Xuanyu’s diary in the Rebel has him be very dismissive of Mo Xuanyu as “not just a lunatic, but a *homosexual* lunatic.“ Very negative view. Others, not so much, more just a “oh, yeah, fact slotted away.“

So most of why people are up in arms over it, again goes back to translation issues. Also, The Untamed is a lot more ‘showing’ of Lan Wangji’s internal conflict of liking this idiot (in a censorship approved way) vs this is an idiot. So The Untamed has more outward signs that Lan Wangji has liked Wei Wuxian for a long time, but still says that absolutely everyone thought they hated each other. It really doesn’t make sense.

Ok, so about that Phoenix Mountain kiss scene

About a year and a half ago, my friend tried to get me into anime. MDZS was the second one recommended to me, and we sat down on a sofa to watch it together on a laptop. My friend's description, by the way, was very bad (“Guy comes back to life and goes on adventures with his past life’s friends.” “Wait how did he die?” “His brother killed him.” “Why did his brother kill him?” “It’s understandable.” “…Sounds like I won’t like this protagonist very much.” “Just watch the anime.”) It was during the third episode that I saw Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji meet, and I, an avid fanfiction reader, immediately said “someone ships it.”

“It’s canon in the book,” my friend said.

“Really?” I said. I’d never seen an actual canon gay couple before. “That’s cool.”

Later, after we’ve discussed how it’s censored in the show and how tragic that is, my friend asks, “Do you want to hear about their first kiss?”

“Sure,” I said.

“So [wwx] is blindfolded.”

“Wait why is he blindfolded?”

“Archery thing, he’s showing off.”

“Okay cool.”

“And he’s in the forest, and he hears a noise, and he’s like, ‘who’s there?’”

“Okay.”

“And then [lwj] kisses him.”

Now that’s not what I’d been expecting at all. But I immediately thought of movies with varying levels of dubious consent and how they use the audience “knowing” that the other characters actually “wants it” to get away with it. I figured that they have a ~passionate kiss scene~ and then Wei Wuxian takes off the blindfold and goes “Oh, it’s you!” and they get together.

So I said, “they get together after that, right?”

“No.”

“No? Then do they ever, like, talk about it?”

“Yeah,” my friend said. “At the end of the novel, when [insert vague euphemism for sex here] and they kiss, and [wwx] is like ‘oh that was you’ and [lwj] is like ‘yeah.’”

“Wait that’s it?” (Side note: it’s so very fanfiction to get kissed and think “yo this is familiar”).

“Yeah.”

So it’s armed with second-hand knowledge from my friend who had read the book that I entered the fandom. To my surprise, I found people on Tumblr who say that the kiss scene was intended to demonstrate a character flaw of Lan Wangji, and that it is discussed later in the book. This directly contradicts what my friend told me, and I have no way of telling who is correct because I have not read the book.

(Though on the topic of character flaws, I will say this: it doesn’t make much sense to me, because 1) a flaw that you’ve spent your whole life trying not to emulate because your father did it is not one you’re likely to pick up, especially if you didn’t interact much with your father. And 2), sexual assault is not caused by being too horny™, but rather entitlement. (Yale University defines sexual assault as “a broad category, denoting any kind of nonconsensual sexual act: touching and kissing can be forms of sexual assault, for example, as well as some forms of oral sex. The legal definition of sexual assault varies from state to state, but indicates some form of nonconsensual penetration.” Obviously this definition varies from country to country too; nevertheless this is the definition I am working off of when I classify the kiss scene as a sexual assault. Whether it’s acceptable varies by period of time and culture, but it’s still assault. Sexism is still sexism even if it’s acceptable. Homophobia is still homophobia even if it’s the norm). Entitlement is a character flaw, you could say, but it’s a product of your upbringing. All this to say that entitlement is a valid character flaw, but…it doesn’t make any sense).

Obviously I cannot say with certainty whether the people on Tumblr or my friend are right, because I haven’t read the book, but I can speak with certainty about the fandom, because I’ve spent a long, long, long time reading MDZS fanfiction. And here’s the attitude that I’ve seen in every single fic that uses the book as canon (save for one (1) fic): the kiss scene was not a “character flaw” of Lan Wangji. Rather, it’s understandable that Lan Wangji “just couldn’t help himself” because Wei Wuxian was “asking for it” by being “too pretty” (and yes, I am quoting fics here). So if the author did intend the kiss scene to be exemplary of a character flaw, it did not come across at all to the book fandom.

I’ve been in this fandom for over a year now, and I’m still so confused. Is it in the book? Is it not in the book? If it is, why does the fandom disagree? Why do people on Tumblr have a different interpretation than the fic writers? Why are there such wildly different opinions on what happened in the book? What is going on?

Anyway if you can give me answers hit me up.

your chaotically wholesome mentor wei wuxian