#rinielle

Honestly comes across to me some people cant comprehend the idea (especially in a modern context) someone might go through life with little interest in having sex with people they don't know well. Not to say people can't interpret characters differently & theres nothing wrong with multiple sexual partners but some people are just "Attractive 30 year old who never had sex? Unrealistic" same or worse w/WWX because he's also open and friendly so obv he'd have sex.

Tbh I feel this is a discussion that should proably be had in society in general. I feel that discussions about sex usually come in two flavours, one of which is ‘if you have sex then you are Sinning and you will be Punished, sex only for Procreation,’ and the other is ‘sex is the Best Thing, it’s Good for you, everyone should be following their Desires and be having Amazing Sex, and oh did we mention that it’s HEALTHY.’

And I think that both approaches are seriously questionable. Because let’s be real, speaking from a historical perspective, condemning sexual activity has prevented exactly 0 people from committing adultery or impregnating your maidservant or whatever. Banishment to hell is really not enough of a threat for some people not to fuck their hot milkman. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s useless and it ultimately just does a lot of harm.

On the other hand, overemphasising how supposedly empowering and important sex is creates a lot of unrealistic ideas and expectations. People feel pressured to reach certain ‘milestones’ until a certain age, or struggle with the sexual satisfaction that they are supposed to reach on a regular basis. With the prevalence of porn, a lot of people feel the need to ‘perform’ on the level that they see there. Which is just not how any of this works.

Sure, there are people who become sexually active in their teenage years and are pretty regularly sexually active until their old age. But for each of these people, there is another person that only becomes sexually active in their thirties or later, or one that gives up having sex (temporarily or permanently) for any number of reason, or one that just... doesn’t enjoy sex that much. And I’m not even talking about asexuality here. There are lots of people who aren’t having sex, or are only having sex very occasionally, and it’s fine.

And that’s really where we should bring this conversation tbh. People can choose to have or not have sex, but it should never happen under pressure, and right now, some parts of society are pressuring people not to have sex because it’s Bad, and the rest of it is pressuring people to have sex because it’s Good. We have been talking a lot about consent (which is super important folks, always get consent), but we are kind of failing on the ‘not wanting to have sex is not a value judgement or moral indicator regarding you or anyone else - just like wanting to have is not’ front.

He was cursed by a witch and turned into Thomas Jefferson...

In case you didn’t know. It’s a minor faff but if in the url you change ‘search’ to 'tagged’ you should see tagged posts that are missing (for whatever dumb reason i don’t fully understand) from the search xx

It depends a bit for me how people write it & why but it always makes me feel uncomfortable if the reasons he's unhappy link to his being quiet and not overly social, having "boring" interests & liking routine and especially if it gets too into him not drinking being somehow sad o-o & that he needs someone like WWX to fix his life up somehow. I think a lot of the time it just comes across as some people believe if you are that way you can't possibly be happy.

Yeah, I definitely feel this. It bothers me a lot when Lan Zhan’s personality and way of being is described as something that needs to be fixed in some way, and Wei Ying is in some way his ‘saviour.’ While yes, in canon Wei Ying does give Lan Zhan the impulse to change perspectives and be more critical of the world around him, the point of the entire thing is that his fundamental character never changes. Wei Ying did not fall in love with him because he was suddenly more outgoing or fun. Both of them learn something along the way, but until the end, they remain the same people, a little wiser now.

squeeingfangirl

yup, sometimes it can be in a kinda ableist way if it's like @rinielle said, about fixing him so learns how to be happy in The Correct Way, or in a kinda racist way if it's about how rules and discipline and obeisance is Inherently Evil and he's opressed victim actually

I’m not sure if it can be called racist, but I do guess there is a certain flavour of Western (particularly ‘’‘American,’’’ probably, not all Western cultures are highly individualistic) individualism at play. Part of that stems (I’d argue) from the fact that LWJ is always perceived to be ‘in’ the system, and WWX ‘outside’ of it, and individualistic culture tells us that the WWX-style rebel is somehow... morally superior through his rejection of the system altogether? While LWJ is, idk, complicit/victimised by adhering to the system in place?

I haven’t really dealt with canon too much lately, but I think it’s pretty clear through the juniors and LWJ’s reputation and the respect he enjoys that he’s been putting a lot of work into reforms during the years of WWX’s death, while remaining fundamentally the same person. It shows that LWJ is by no means unhappy with who he is - on the contrary, he willingly carries the responsibilities of his clan and family, and submits to a punishment he does not agree with. He will go to bed at nine, but likewise, he will be an immovable object if he believes himself to be in the right.