Lan Qiren Meta

[x_los]

 You ever think about how this motherfucker didn't even want kids? Qiren’s brother abdicated. He got stuck running the sect, raising sons and trying to protect the ethos of Lan. He ended up endangering the sect’s material survival, and its core principles, while ruining his relationships with his kids (who never once consider calling him their father). And he never got to fuck Changse Sanren. Jiang Cheng 1.0, I see you.

 

He cannot even say, ‘well, at least the boys are happy—’ Xichen is in a sadcave for an indeterminate period, he is not happy. Qiren has to live the rest of his life knowing Wei Wuxian was right, and may be a better teacher than him. The sheer indignity! At least Jin Guangshan got to die, and didn't have to live with Wei Wuxian’s sex noises. I bet some days, Lan Qiren envies him. 

 

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Lunarriviera suggested that some of the injunctions against speaking of Wei Wuxian after his death could have been intended kindly, given that Lan Wangji’s banishment to seclusion is, arguably, an assigned or self-chosen three-year traditional mourning period. However else they feel about it, Lan might recognise Lan Wangji as a kind of (possibly self-defined) widower. It might well upset Lan Wangji to hear Wei Wuxian incessantly discussed in the terms the cultivation world have taken to discussing him in his own home. 

 

Somewhat similarly, there’s seemingly almost no ‘domestic’ Lan conversation regarding the late Madam Lan. Why, exactly? The scandal of her original crime, or of her punishment? Saving face, an urge to conceal the events entirely? Patriarchal nastiness, or recognition of an open wound, and that it’d be unfair or unkind to say things about her that her children would have to hear?

 

(Fandom has leapt to the ‘pure patriarchal nastiness, uwu poor Madam Lan’ explanation of those events. While that’s very possible, it’s by no means the only viable telling of that story, and I have a degree of feminist disquiet with the lack of agency these very consistent framings offer the character: just Bertha Mason, forever. More on this another time.) 

 

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jin ling uncles georg, @aplethoras · Aug 31, 2020

Replying to @boldsurvive

just lan qiren against an army of beautiful fools simping for bastards

 

Lan Wangji is, eventually, revealed to have been Right All Along, but Qiren might well say, ‘in my fucking defence, how was I to know that this one time—’

 

I can’t believe Lan Qiren is so petty he straight up wrote ‘Wei Wuxian, specifically: don't fuck with him’ into a rock, like 'let there be zero room for misinterpretation here! I know he’s dead, ask me if I care!’ And Lan Qiren was right, that bitch came back!