#lan an

It is forbidden to show excessive emotion, to be rude to others, to let yourself get carried away by hedonism, to make noise... but those rules get overenforced so much that Lan Zhan the "perfect" Lan is regarded as an unfeeling human statue.

And the Lan disciples are not statues, they're humans who feel, who love, hate, envy, grieve, get excited, get disappointed and make mistakes. Yet the rules pretty much prevent them from ever expressing their opinions or emotions freely.

So every Lan is lying by omission most of the time, because they can never say what they truly think.

And I honestly believe that Lan An would be thumping his head into the nearest wall if he saw how his principles have been added to, twisted and reshaped into the self-contradictory and opressing mess that governs the sect.

Which just now ocurred to me would make a nice parallel with another ascetic dude who got their teachings twisted and fanoned as a tool for opression.

Lan An in the afterlife: No, no, that is NOT what I meant with that precept, that is the exact opposite from what I taught you!

Jesus, handing him a cup of wine: Just wait until they make their first Inquisition.

Lan An and Yue Ying Xin is a scetch.

What if in one iteration they both just decided "Fuck all this war-mongering, let's try and cultivate our way out of this shit instead" and changed their names and stayed on Zhuge Liang's mountain together and-

The Gusu Lan Clan was founded by Lan An. He was born in a temple, became a famous monk at a young age, and chose to cultivate as a musician. He took his surname Lan after 伽藍, or the Chinese transliteration of samghārāma (सँघाराम) or 'monastery’. After searching for his "fated person" and becoming their cultivation partner, he founded the Gusu Lan Clan.[5] At some point, Lan An and his spouse had or adopted children. After their death, he left the Cloud Recesses and returned to the temple.

At last, there was something interesting after attending numerous days of classes. Even though Lan Qiren explained it in a dry and chronological way, Wei Wuxian was finally paying attention. After the lesson, Wei Wuxian laughed, saying, “It turns out that the Lan family’s founder is a monk. That explains it. To step into the secular world just to meet one person, and leaving once the person goes, forgoing the world. Yet, how did such an ancestor produce such unromantic descendants?

Chapter 18 - Taming Wangxian

I just love how WWX is finally paying attention to something in class, even though it's about another sect's history and LQR makes it sound boring as hell. All because WWX is such an absolute sweetheart and finds the whole story so romantic.

Then WWX has to get a little dig in about Lan An's descendants, because he's being so pouty about LWJ rejecting him! How does WWX know LWJ is "unromantic"... Unless he's been trying to provoke such behaviour... Unless he's a little upset that LWJ keeps rejecting his invites to Lotus Pier and to dine out together... Unless he actually might have some romantic feelings towards Second Young Master Lan...

WWX even remembers the story years later in his second life - because it left such an impression. He just wants a bit of romance! And LWJ certainly delivers on that when they get together in WWX's second life 💕