#everything. everything

1. the original Yunmeng Shuangjie conversation in episode 14.

like! augh.  I’m not sure that this was the place where I was officially painfully ridiculously sold on their relationship as my favorite part of the show so far but it was a major contributing factor. There’s just so much going on here! In the way that it speaks to their history together, and in their family, and the roles they play.

I love, too, that Wei Wuxian specifically goes “twin jades? pfff. we’ve got our own thing going on that’s just as cool” because it’s doing double duty of making them a special thing in their own right and also, maybe even more importantly, reaffirming their bond as primary where Jiang Cheng at this point has been...well, a little uneasy about the space Lan Wangji has started to occupy in Wei Wuxian’s life. To say the least.

But maybe even most of all why this is such a gut punch for me personally: the promise Wei Wuxian is making to Jiang Cheng is one that you, the viewer, know isn’t going to work out. Thanks to the opening of episode one, and their interaction in episode two, it’s abundantly clear that something is going to go horribly wrong, and this close relationship is going to break, catastrophically.

And me being me I love the piquant taste of dramatic irony in the morning.

2. the argument in episode 27-28.

This is one of those moments where I never fail to get extremely emotional about it every time I watch this scene because it is so very ouch. The way that Jiang Cheng approaches Wei Wuxian with this guarded wariness, this prickliness and doubt, and how that breaks by the end into his desperate plea: “if you continue to protect them, then I can’t protect you!”

(different subtitles, so sue me.)

and I cry.

I’ve written before about how there’s...so much going on here. To break it down a little bit how about a bulleted list:

Jiang Cheng has been personal witness to - and personal target off - the current political winds, in a way that Wei Wuxian is not. He’s seeing and hearing how the cultivation world is talking about Wei Wuxian. He can see the way the wind is blowing very, very clearly, and what he sees is that Wei Wuxian is doomed if he stays the course - something Wei Wuxian either doesn’t or doesn’t want to see.

Jiang Cheng desperately wants Wei Wuxian to come home. Wei Wuxian can’t without abandoning the people relying on him, which would be both an ethical and emotional violation for him. His conflicting loyalties are coming to a head here but he still wants to have it both ways.

What Wei Wuxian sees as a mercy or releasing of obligation, a way of keeping Yunmeng Jiang and specifically Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli safe, Jiang Cheng sees as an abandonment/rejection - an affirmation that he, once again, just doesn’t matter enough.

It’s just...I cannot get over how clear-eyed Jiang Cheng’s assessment is. Whether or not you agree with his choices, he’s right, on a factual level. And I think Wei Wuxian knows that. But he’s on this road and he’s going to see it through, and he refuses to accept that he might not be able to. 

and I just. I cry.

3. the conversation post resurrection.

Jiang Cheng cornering Wei Wuxian with the very animal he swore to always protect him from! party foul, yes, but also oh boy psychologically crunchy in every way. This confrontation, their first after Wei Wuxian’s resurrection where they both know and know they know the truth of who Wei Wuxian is, is so full of pain and hurt and anger.

it’s just! so much. Jiang Cheng’s see-sawing back and forth between “why didn’t you come back home!!!” (the question he’s always had) and “why aren’t you still dead!!!” Wei Wuxian murmuring about wanting to go back to Lotus Pier, calling for Jiang Yanli (Jiang Yanli, the biggest wound between them, her absence so very palpable in that moment).

There’s so much both of them want here, and so much that’s not being said, and can’t be said. The overwhelming pressure of their history - Jiang Cheng’s sixteen years of grief and anger raw all over again, and Wei Wuxian's exhaustion and misery.

it’s excruciatingly painful and I love it.

4. the conversation in Guanyin Temple.

so I spent, like, most of the latter half of the show waiting for a moment between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng where things would break and I’d get the emotional sibling catharsis feelings that I needed and boy did this deliver. like! other people have written far more coherent meta about this scene than I probably ever could because when I think about it I’m just sort of reduced to dragging my hands down my face and making distressed noises punctuated with wild gestures and cries of “THEM!!!”

the crying! the ugly crying, the ugly emotions, the big secret between them that set off the beginning of the rift in their relationship laid bare. it’s this moment of naked emotional vulnerability for both of them, and while it doesn’t resolve things, while it leaves them both in a place, I think, where they’re prone to go ‘well, he’s done with me now’ - it also opens a door where that doesn’t have to be the case. Wei Wuxian’s tenderness. The gesture he makes here, too, touching Jiang Cheng’s face, echoes the gesture Jiang Yanli makes touching Wei Wuxian’s just before she dies.

(echoes what jiang fengmian does before he goes off to die. how’s that for pain?)

it’s just. wild gestures. them. oh, boys. so much hurt, so much pain, and at the root of it so much goddamn love.

I’m going to go on and slide in here additionally the moment where Jiang Cheng tosses Wei Wuxian Chenqing because boy does that say a lot in a relatively simple gesture.

5. meeting in Yiling with Jiang Yanli.

This scene is...I described it from Jiang Cheng’s POV remembering in a fic as "like looking at children in the path of a rockslide, unaware of what was bearing down on them, such a short time away. Oblivious.” and that’s how I feel watching it. It’s so cute, and sweet, and Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian love Jiang Yanli so much, and Jiang Cheng has suggested Jiang Yanli ask Wei Wuxian to give his unborn nephew his courtesy name and then gets embarrassed when she outs him about it, he and Wei Wuxian tease each other.

I love it. There’s just this sweetness and happiness that they’re having, in this moment, in this tiny courtyard,  because this little separate hidden place is the only place, now, where they can be together, where they can be family as they once were.

And it’s not going to last. And the viewer, once again, can feel the gathering storm bearing down on them, and know it’s only going to end in tragedy.

This is the last time they see each other before it all goes wrong.

BONUS: