Bless Mxtx For Showcasing How Relational Trauma And Traumatizing Environments Get In The Way Of Good Things - Tumblr Posts

The discourse around "Wei Wuxian was oblivious" or "Lan Wangji was mean and didn't show his feelings" makes me so tired.

Clearly, many people have not loved someone so much it terrified them, loved a person in such imminent danger that every interaction became tense and difficult. The desire to remove that person from danger, control the situation (or even the person themselves), see them safe makes you yourself a different person entirely.

And on the flipside, the sense of belonging and care so absent and broken that you cannot see what is in front of you. Trust so destroyed (in yourself and others) that you no longer do the work (as you were trained to) to see beyond the cruelty and control as a facade for love and care. To see yourself as a sore and soft creature, encased in a hard weaponized shell that has to fight everything every second to survive, until it no longer seems worth it.

There is no nuance in either perspective, just a profound amount of fear and a drive for survival. MDZS is about war, class disparity, violence on a massive scale that also impacts every single relationship. One of the many reasons I love the story so deeply is that, yes, we see the connection between the two and the potential for so much, but the very reasons they are soulmates -- their values, sense of justice, intensity, dedication, sincerity, etc -- are also the exact reasons there was no option for them to be together under the onslaught of systemic violence.

They both understood that in their own distorted ways, and did not have the time or space to discover what they could make together instead. I think if they had even an iota of a chance to do so -- so close, teased at in LWJ's visit to Yiling with A-Yuan -- they would have tried. But they didn't.

It's all painfully human and real and I love mxtx for that.