Wei Wuxian Is Perpetually Being Dragged Around And Forced To Fulfill Other Peoples Expectations. And

Wei Wuxian is perpetually being dragged around and forced to fulfill other people’s expectations. And also, and I blame CQL for this one: Once the Mo family was dead, the contract was fulfilled. He did not spend the entire novel hunting for the last person Mo Xuanyu wanted revenge on. The people Mo Xuanyu wanted dead were his aunt, uncle, cousin, and A-Tong.

So whatever happened when Mo Xuanyu was kicked out of the Jin? He didn’t care enough to take revenge.

Wei Wuxian did not “body-snatch” Mo Xuanyu’s body; he was forcibly pulled from the afterlife to inhabit said body to enact revenge on behalf of Mo Xuanyu, under threat of having his soul annihilated. Mo Xuanyu only had to sacrifice his physical body—not his soul or ability to reincarnate—on his end to complete the spell. Wei Wuxian’s consent was not necessary, and he was not exactly jumping for joy upon discovering he was alive again because someone thought he was cruel and evil.

Quotes under the cut:

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Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!

Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!

Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.

You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.

"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)

Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.

As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)

A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.

Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.

If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

Which translation you use matters. I was lucky enough to learn that early. So when I tracked it down and started reading it, yes, I did finish up with exr. They were the only ones done. (Love them odor that, but I think they made a few translations at the beginning that they then had to keep running with for consistency’s sake.)

Man. Do you get a totally different take on certain characters after that.

MDZS Notes + Analysis — Chapter Two: “Reincarnation”

Three main things stood out to me when rereading this chapter: the theme of status, our intro to WWX, and the information we’re given about his state after death.

…Well, four things, but the other one will get its own post.

The theme of status is immediately introduced* with ‘MXY’’s treatment and the backstory of MXY and his mother, yet again showing just how well MDZS’s ideas are integrated into the text and how well it’s paced! You’re introduced to every important theme so, so early on. Two screenshots are analysed below:

(See: entitlement of the upper classes towards the lower classes, and how this can exist even between members of the ‘same family’; and arguably the idea of debts between a richer family and someone who was 'taken in'. There are a surprising amount of parallels between MXY and WWX, but I'll make my own post about that)

(See: once again, differences in status between members of the same family, and also the worse, and disposable, treatment of one daughter because she was "the daughter of a servant". Now, why does that phrase sound familiar...?)

Also, MXY's mother was sixteen when she attracted JGS's attention... if you somehow needed even more material to hate the guy...

We also get introduced to WWX’s personality(!), which immediately disproves the rumours from last chapter on how he'd cast the world into ruin:

(That's one of the first questions he asks after waking up – I love how he's so concerned about this! It shows us two important things, too: 1) Morality is important to WWX, and 2) Doing immoral things seems to be out of the ordinary for him. Both of these stand in direct contrast to the picture of WWX we were painted earlier!)

(Same thing here, along with showing us some of the (healthy!) pride WWX has – he wouldn't be offended at this if wasn't something he held as important within himself)

(I use this quote again, but here it's once again proving that the vengeful, evil WWX who'd sink the cultivation world into "nothing but chaos and despair" at the first chance he got... very much does not exist.)

(And finally, it's explicitly confirmed here that he's not the type to take exessive revenge and take pleasure in it... at least at this point in time, because. MXY definitely had reason to think this considering Sunshot!WWX, if everyone had been working from the truth. But importantly that isn't who he is now, and isn't who the WWX villified by the cultivation world was – imo that's including Nightless City, we'll get to that when I reach it. But note that actions during the Sunshot campaign aren't even mentioned in the prologue, because, shock, they actually helped the cultivation world win the war! Though that doesn't mean they weren't part of rumours + the WWX hatred mill later.)

Then some non-morality related things:

This is just really funny to me, with how the makeup being badly applied (:o) is enough of an issue to merit a thought – WWX I love you.

And then this way of thinking comes back a few times esp during the earlier chapters, enough to be noted I think.

Confirmation on WWX's status after he died – it's not anything new to point out, but this chapter does give us rare insights into what state he was in during the post-death, pre-rebirth period.

So, he was somewhat conscious, enough to be aware of what he was(n't) doing – seeking vengeance, haunting the living – and was seemingly in control of those actions. However, he was specifically a "wandering ghost" – his soul didn't pass onto the afterlife or "return back to Earth"** like the body-offering spell's caster's would. He was conscious that a long time had passed as well, and this long period of downtime where he could accept + deal with what happened in his first life is what likely allowed him to be so well-adjusted the second time round – even taking into account the remarkably good way he tends to deal with things in general (cue the "forgetting the wound when the pain fades" quote, it summarises WWX's mindset really well)***.

Also, as for resisting the summons from the prologue – I'm wondering how much was due to WWX's experience with resentful energy + general capability (if that affects it..?) allowing him to consciously refuse, how much was due to WWX not being the type to hold onto resentment (so possibly spells targeting ghosts, full of this resentful energy, wouldn't be as affected?), and how much was due to the relative lack of knowledge about how ghosts/resentful energy works compared to WWX. Or, if it was something else. Either way, achieving the impossible, that's WWX for you :D

It is interesting that he hasn't heard a voice in ages despite wandering, too – do ghosts just not hear the same way, or did he deliberately avoid areas with people? I could see both, the second being more likely, especially considering how many people wanted to summon him back for... less than stellar purposes.

Misc:

Poor Mo Xuanyu....

--

*Well, reinforced – in the prologue, one of the things said about WWX is that "if not for the YunmengJiang clan’s adopting and teaching him, he would have been a hobo living on the streets", which is among the insults people throw. So of course, class-affecting-perception is tied to WWX from the very beginnning! But this is the first time it's actually explored, not a throwaway line.

**Though that may be what's literally happening to WWX's soul here – it is wandering around Earth – I don't think that's what this line refers to. There's a very good meta on how different translations handled that line, and from my memory it seems to instead refer to passing onto some sort of afterlife/to the reincarnation cycle. I can't seem to find it, which is annoying as 1) I'd love to fact-check, 2) I want to credit my sources, and 3) it's a very good read – it started out questioning why in the 7S translation it says MXY's soul would be destroyed, so if anyone can easily locate it so I can link it here, that would be much appreciated!

***It would be very interesting to read a fic where it felt like no time had passed for him since his death, actually! Though the extremely stressful circumstances are gone, it would still be interesting to see a WWX for whom the Siege, Nightless City, Qiongqi Path etc are pretty recent – but only in fic territory, since I'm so, so glad we got the WWX we did in canon. Also, I'd love to see a fic maybe exploring some of his time as a ghost...?

Emotionally checking out of the Jiang… yeah. Yeah I see that. Which would be another reason Lan Wangji would be freaking out, because as far as he knew Wei Wuxian was devoted to the Jiang.

Remember how I made this post (a continuation of this thought) about how Wei Wuxian never visiting the ancestral hall post-fall of Lotus Pier was probably because the next thing he wanted to tell the former Jiang leaders was also the last thing he wanted to say to them: that he was officially leaving? Well, after deep-diving into this, I wonder if I'd actually unintentionally hit the nail on the head and that Wei Wuxian avoiding the ancestral hall was a sign that he had actually already emotionally checked out of viewing himself as a part of the Jiang sect once he fulfilled the debt pressed on him by Jiang Fengmian and Madam Yu.

I mean, the man in the three months after the fall of Jiang Clan sacrificed his golden core to the next heir, liberated Lotus Pier, and successfully wrought vengeance against the Wen who killed them. Everything after that—attending the conferences Jiang Cheng needs him to, showing off the might of the clan during competitions, etc. etc.—feels like him just going through the motions in an attempt to get his thoughts to align with his actions, to fool himself into being alright. But the fact that he could never quite work up the desire to step foot into the ancestral hall to honor his martial ancestors until his second life? Sounds like his attempts at acceptance proved unsuccessful until he experienced the true support of the loved ones in his second life.

the way Lucy weaves connections with her three suitors. How even though she denies both Quincey and Seward, there’s a string threaded between them all with a promise of friendship. And how Lucy tightens the thread to Mina with a letter. This web of love and genuine human connection that is so very different from the isolation Jonathan is enduring. How Dracula tried to cut the tether Jonathan has to this web and forge a new one with false letters. But it’s still there, because of Mina and the love they share. And how these connections lead to Dracula’s demise because humanity has always been stronger together

This is a huge part of the why, as I’ve learned more and more about the source material, the Jiang Cheng/Wen Qing ship bugs me. She’s seen exactly what he does to people he owes favors to, especially when he believes them lesser than him. Even if we discount the core transfer, he knew he owed her and Wen Ning specifically for sheltering them in Yiling.

"Jiang Cheng should have been allowed informed consent".

He did. As in he was informed he'd receive a core regardless and accepted. Also his issue was never about the harm it would cause to Wei Wuxian or the loss it would be for Wei Wuxian. It was compounded that he did owe grace to Wei Wuxian for what he had done for Jiang Cheng. Let's also stop omitting that Jiang Cheng was set on committing suicide by starving himself because he could no longer cultivate in direct contrast to Wei Wuxian reasoning that he was simply giving back what he had been given by the Jiang Clan anyways by giving his core that was developed with their methods.

The only reason he is upset about anything to do with that situation is that once again he did and always had relied on what Wei Wuxian said and did for him while constantly calling Wei Wuxian ungrateful.