Chapter Text
- Normal Again: circa the Burial Mounds settlement arc, a curse hits Wei Wuxian right in the ’sublimated discontent with his whole life at present/longing for the security and belonging of he associates with a normal life/troubled relationship with his own extraordinary talent’. Seemingly flitting between universes, Wei Wuxian comes to believe that really, he’s a farmer in a mundane, magic-less universe (possibly this is his incense burner fantasy, avec house husband Lan Wangji). Maybe his natal and adoptive parents are all alive in what he believes to be the ‘real world’, or at least died peaceably; his sect-siblings are also still alive. Of course like Buffy, a Wei Wuxian who’s being told that he needs to destroy his dream-world is incredibly dangerous.
- Older and Far Away: instead of Dawn trapping everyone in the family home during Buffy's birthday party, a post-canon Sizhui, who’s sick of people leaving and dying, curses his eternally-slinking-off Xian-ge, his depressed-about-it father, and his even more depressed uncles to stick around and Be Family for fucking once. It could be a bad decision on Sizhui’s part, an unintentional curse, something that takes advantage of Sizhui’s uniquely strong magic and trauma (and possibly his denial—he may have smiled and told Xian-ge that of course it’s fine if he goes travelling again, and thought he meant it), or an accidental externality of he and the other juniors’ wishes and powers. Jin Ling, for example, is also pretty vulnerable to wanting reparative, cloying closeness while being deeply in denial about that.
- Where the Wild Things Are: substitute in your preferred medievalism for ‘frat house’; bonus complete absence of Riley. A cursed sex pollen building entraps Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, possibly during the Sunshot campaign (or a similar period of tension).
- Something Blue: as a result of something like this episode’s shenanigans, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji wind up engaged during the Cloud Recesses training arc. After the curse fades, Wei Wuxian, embarrassed, tries to laugh the whole thing off. Lan Wangji is not a teenaged boy to be ‘laughed off’: engagements are for life, not just for Qixi.
- Tabula Rasa: but at the Guanyin Temple.
- Once More, with Feeling: This was mongrelmind’s idea initially!
For roughly fifteen minutes, the Lan Clan is smug about their IMMENSE natural advantage here. But once they realise they will have to sing about Feelings, both the horror and the silence spells set in. Hoist by their own petards, they are no longer even a little smug. Suddenly, they are very, very interested in breaking this curse.
This is especially true once they realise that applying silence spells is not a tenable medium-term solution. Such blockages increase the threat of qi deviation from the curse. Further, a strong, developed qi is its own source of risk, in this. Every Lan elder and main line family member starts looking at seclusion like it’s real tasty.
Jingyi is frustrated by always ending up a backup dancer. Zizhen, who is eating this shit up, advises him just to go with it. Jin Ling thinks they are both lucky not to have trauma powerful enough to instigate a musical number. He himself (the Dawn) has twice opened his mouth to siiiiiii—only to be immediately kidnapped.
Jiang Cheng sniffs the air, sensing—drama. He is pulled East—but why?
Wei Wuxian, wielding a series of pop numbers, sexy beats and joke songs, is an absolute expert at fending off dramatic power ballads. Everyone wants to know how he’s manipulating the spell so masterfully: years of emotional repression and deflection, baby. Learn him.