Its Just That They Had Obligations That Were Pulling Them In Different Directions - Tumblr Posts

Maybe unpopular opinion, Wei Wuxian matured faster then Lan Wangji, he just was never romance focused. Besides keeping himself alive on the streets and thriving in a sect where his superior at the very least strongly disliked him (Madam Yu and her relationship with Wei Wuxian has been discoursed to death), he was head disciple for at the very least his generation on down of one of major sects. Which means training, potentially housing, politics, watching diet, classroom work, the Six Arts, core foundation. And he probably had a role in assigning night hunts and any administration task that neither Jiang Fengmian or Madame Yu wanted to do. Boy was busy, even discounting the civilians who could approach him for something they considered important but not enough to bother the sect leaders about.

Going to Cloud Recesses was probably the closest thing he’d had to a vacation in years. (Which, explains a lot about his general attitude while there. And why Jiang Cheng kept wanting to strangle him. Imagine going for study abroad and your obnoxiously talented sibling spent the whole time site-seeing and getting straight A’s while you studied your ass off just to get A’s and B’s.)

This is not, in any way, trying to say that Lan Wangji was not mature for his age, or that he didn’t have duties and responsibilities of his own, just that he wasn’t taking on an adult’s workload while still in puberty. I think a large period of his personal growth started with the burning of Cloud Recesses. The Wen Indoctrination Camp is a dark mirror of the Lan Lectures as the fandom points out, but people seem to miss that it was also a personal dark mirror of Wei Wuxian‘s Cloud Recesses experience. Forced to obey the rules of another sect that he found ridiculous, physically punished for what amounts to a personal grudge, most definitely did not have his choice of food or drink. Some of the only things that made the Summer Camp From Hell bearable for him were probably all related to Wei Wuxian. Noticeably, this is the first time that he is able to experience the benefits of Wei Wuxian being a pest to authority figures, and see some of the moral benefits to Wei Wuxian’s antics.

And then after the crucible of growth and maturity that is war, they are both indisputably adults, and mostly mature. Lan Wangji has decided that it’s Wei Wuxian or no one at this point, and while he has a few rough edges, he’s ready to commit. Wei Wuxian however is not in the headspace of a romantic relationship being possible. We know he’s at least a little bit of a romantic himself, because no one saves/protects their first kiss like that if they aren’t. And given that the word “protect” is used, it wasn’t due to lack of interest in his person. But the majority of the romantic relationships he has observed first hand have been unmitigated disasters, and he doesn’t remember his parents. It’s no wonder he questions Jiang Yanli about romance. He’s trying to figure out if she’s agreed to be the next generation version of Jiang Fengmian at best, or the next generation version Madam Jin at worst. He wants to know why she’s going back to the man that has been hurting her, and quite badly, since they were at least fifteen. I tend to think it was for longer, because of how willing Jiān Fengmian was to break off a political alliance when the Wen were on the move. This is, actually, also a scene that reminded me of my own brother. There’s roughly the same age gap between he and I as between Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian, and while he is an adult and mature, his own grasp of romance has lagged behind. I’ve had conversations with family over this where they all comment that what he’s found that helps him understand to be juvenile, I have observed to be about right for him emotionally.

So, while I adore fix-it’s and early get together stories, I don’t think the two of them were in compatible places in life until Mo Xuanyu did his thing. There, after he fulfills the summoning rituals demands (and in the novel, the only targets were the the Mo and A-Tong) he is free of all debts. With the core transfer he squared his debt with the Jiang Sect as a whole, and with protecting the Wen he paid any remaining debt between he and Jiang Wanyin by saving the latter’s honor even if no one else knew it. Any debt between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng ended when the latter set the dog on him. (That does not mean the emotional connection between them snapped then, but with the breaking of the promise, it was the last debt tie.) This is literally the first time since Jiang Fengmian took him off the streets that Wei Wuxian has not been either debt bound or tethered to anyone. For the first time, his life is his own.

So he makes himself responsible for a donkey and goes to become a rogue cultivator. And finds himself smack dab next to the one person who can draw him in like a moth to a flame without even trying.