Talismans: Wei Wuxian has a tendency to invent and use a lot of talismans, including, but not limited to: weighted talismans that pin a target down, talismans that cause a person to go still, command talismans to make people more suggestible, sealing talismans to keep an energy or creature sealed in place (or person), talismans for fire, talismans for locating, talismans for clearing fog and dispelling illusions, talismans for attracting evil spirits, talismans for repelling evil spirits, talismans that turn into fire butterflies and sparkle attack a target for no physical damage but great at barrier breaking or causing distractions, talismans to dampen sound, talismans to generate light, talismans to break through barriers, talismans to establish barriers... there's not a lot of limitation in at least some kind of talismans being invented to try and handle a situation. He's particularly known for inventing new ones. Talismans can be drawn on anything, though traditionally are easiest on slips of paper. Wei Wuxian uses paper, his own hands, the ground (with his blood as the ink), his own clothing, and notes that he could do the same with flags or other fabric. He can also make paper people talismans that he controls from a distance, to various degrees.
Paper Doll Talismans: He can place his full consciousness into a paper doll that he manipulates remotely, but he can also place just a fraction of his consciousness into a paper doll in order to communicate (telepathically or verbally) or otherwise look around or interact with the world around him as a paper doll. Placing his full consciousness to go beyond his direct line of sight means leaving his body vulnerable and seemingly comatose.
Music: Untamed has spiritual creature influencing based on music, and Wei Wuxian manages to both perform this by flute and through the act of whistling. Basically, the melodies he produces are capable of agitating or soothing spirits/resentful energies/puppets (think possessed living persons or persons still alive rendered into a zombie-like state), manipulating them with that sound to some purpose. That purpose may be to seal or settle those energies, or to direct those energies to attack, or anything else that occurs to him. Again noting he can simply whistle to do this, though he prefers the use of a bamboo flute. He can also play on a blade of grass. He can also send energy/ghosts/demons/etc on, settle them, or destroy them through music. His work is primarily aimed at the dead, in some form or another, or those possessed by the dead or the energies of the dead (human or animal).
Inventions: He invented a compass that points toward evil creatures/demons/ghosts/the kinds of things the cultivators went after on night hunts. We see less of his golden qi nets in the present, and probably he can't make something that large with his energy anymore, but back when he had a golden core he could make giant nets of qi either across an area or around a group of people to act as protection. He used to be able to use his binding/bonding invented technique, which generates a single string of qi that can be directed to attach to a target of his choice.
Empathy: Empathy is a memory sharing technique which allow him to enter the consciousness or memory of a ghost, or a living person, witnessing the things they saw and lived through without being able to influence what he sees. Empathy can be mad-making, however, if he can't be pulled back out, and it's more dangerous with another living mind than with the already deceased (presumably, since he had more trouble coming back out with the living A-Jing/A-Qing than he did with the dead Nie Mingjue).
Energy Sensitivity: He's sensitive to different energies in the world, particularly resentful/evil ones and spiritual ones, as he's worked with those extensively. It doesn't mean being able to identify what any energy he comes across means, but areas which have seen death, particularly unrestful death, will resonate. Even stronger resentful or bloodthirsty energies will be headache inducing. He can manipulate these energies in many cases, but not all.
Curses and Purification: Curses are a thing he does not do but something he recognises in series, as curses have a kickback that falls on the one who laid the curse. He's been shown to transfer a curse from someone else onto himself, and was also cursed by his form of summoning to track down those who wronged Mo Xuanyu and cause them to be undone, directly or indirectly. On the flipside, purifying areas or gathering lingering negative energies into specific targets to slowly cleanse an area and allow healthy things to grow is part of what he can do, or else the entirety of trying to farm in the Yiling Burial Mounds would have led to starvation instead of its thin success.
PERSONALITY:
Self-Sacrificing. Often part of what his heroics are involved over, Wei Wuxian even now is a man who sacrifices himself for the sake of those he cares about, and has only just started learning he can ask for help and not tackle every issue on his own. The reflecting over what the cost of his self-sacrificing actions have been over the years is in progress by series end, but by no means finished. He still has low self-value, and believing he's worth caring for is difficult, but not impossible. He cares for people even when they've hurt him and even when he's hurt them, and has been learning how to offer apologies and say thank you for the things given to or done for him in the past or present. He doesn't enjoy watching innocents suffer, and this does tend to learn toward women, children, and normal folks who aren't cultivators. He will intercede when he sees a need, just less thoughtlessly than he once did.
Forward Looking. Wei Wuxian wants to look forward and move forward instead of linger over the past. He's still processing the past, but it's a matter of understanding it and coming to terms with it, then letting it go. While he by no means has the truly terrible recollection that his novel counterpart has, he does have a tendency to want to forget what he considers unimportant to focus on what's worth remembering: the good, the kindness, the love. It's where his younger reputation for being always smiling and shaking off all bad things comes from, and while he's less blithe about it now, he still wants to keep moving forward, and not hold grudges for the past even if he's quieter and more melancholic about the past these days. Seen also with how he tells Lan Zhan, why ask Nie Huaisang about the things he knows/suspects his friend did in order to set up the scene Wei Wuxian walked into, sixteen years late with Cultivationbucks? They don't matter anymore. It's also where his mentality to move forward finding himself in a world that outpaced him, even alone, can be a hopeful move, and one that ultimately brings him back to Gusu Lan and Lan Zhan.
Curious, inventive, intelligent. His sense of curiosity gets him in and out of trouble, because he is perhaps too intelligent (but not wise enough) for his own good. Wei Wuxian shows off less after his "resurrection," but still possesses a keen wit and quick mind, breaking down situations and connections between events to dig at the truth behind them. He's an inventor, inventing new seals, new talismans, energy-sensitive compasses (evil! tracking! it's great), and a whole way of cultivation that relied on redirecting resentful and malign energies instead of relying on spiritual qi from a golden core. This allowed him to manipulate these energies in the living (... because again, zombies weren't allowed, so they're all "puppets" who were maybe alive maybe dead it really is a Question, isn't it) and in the incorporeal dead (he's allowed to manipulate ghosts, at least). He was continuously inventing new talismans and tricks from his teen years up to the point of his "death", and presumably returns to these things now that he's "alive" again.
Emotionally thick. He can have a better grasp on other people's emotions for others, as a general thing, but his sensitivity with regards to himself and others is very low. Part of it is self worth issues and doubt of if he deserves people caring for him again when he managed to hurt everyone he cared about (including getting them killed) sixteen years ago, as a consequence of his actions. That it wasn't wholly his fault or causing doesn't undo the impact those losses had on him, or in (the frankly needed) shaking of his belief and his arrogance over his ability to control and handle resentful energies as he thought he could.
Resigned is more a trait he's working on overcoming, because coming back from "dying" left him resigned to how people perceived him as the Yiling Patriarch, and that he was going to be blamed for all bad things regardless of his ever being involved. By series end he's less resigned and more hopeful again, allowing him to look forward as he prefers to do, and most of that is the support of Lan Wangji and then the younger generation that chose to believe in him from what they knew, and not from what others had said about him. He cannot make up for what happened in the past, but he can do better now, and not repeat mistakes, and that resignation he felt for how things had happened before can now start changing into hope.
Sad but becoming hopeful. He's getting better about this but this man is constantly tearing up, he feels a lot of emotions and has been coping with coming to terms with the truth of events that destroyed him and those he loved 16 years ago, as well as the difficulties he's been working through in present. Sad as a note here is not that his personality is A Big Sad Person, but that he's got a lot of underlying sadness he's still working on based on everything that's happened in his life. He's working through it, has learned to forgive himself for some things, and truly set others in the past, but it comes up for various reasons, and is part of his drinking habits...
Alcohol as a coping mechanism? Yeah. That's Wei Wuxian. He drinks to soothe his thoughts and try to cope with reality, and is not as bad right now as he was in the past, but it's still something he both enjoys, and enjoys socially, and also can turn into a crutch when he just doesn't want to keep thinking about a subject.
There's a big gap between the kind of social he was when younger and the kind of social he is now! He talks with people easily enough, cuts in verbally to conversations, defends people with words, and can be sassy when he wants, but he's not the social leaning butterfly he once was. He's still mouthy, particularly when he wants to get something over with, and still can drive people to annoyance when he aims to, but it's much more deliberate and less frequent as a whole. He's dry, sarcastic, and matter of fact... and then depending on what kind of mood he's in, and how much he's trying to deflect a person, dramatic and playacting toward pouting or laughter or playful accusation to keep a conversation turned away from a topic he doesn't want to speak on. He's more capable of talking about things that were hard for him in the past now than he was before, but he's overall still learning how to do that naturally. He's also less gregarious in crowds, but can fall back into those habits when necessary for actions or a role he's temporarily taking on.
Noting that unlike in other media sources, Untamed Wei Wuxian does not appear to have explicit memory issues. He's got PTSD, he has things he prefers not to remember, but he never personally claims to forget things which don't make sense to forget; instead he deflects by saying, "Don't others say I have a bad memory? Let it be that." Him not recalling where he heard the song Lan Wangji authored and hummed to him in the fake xuanwu's cave has everything to do with him being feverish and passing out at the time, rather than a chronically bad memory. Jiang Yanli summed up his tendency to smile and "forget" the bad to look forward and focus on the good, making it all come down to someone who is more inclined to let go of things than hold grudges, and try to forget what's not worth remembering. Much like what a younger him said to a drunk Lan Wangji: let us forget what's not worth remembering, and remember everything that shouldn't be forgotten. This means he also forgets people he doesn't find worth remembering because why waste brain space on them; coming back around to him not holding grudges without a very good and personal reason, and even then, not being one to fester over them and instead respond and take action. Goodbye, Wen Chao and sidepiece, you died horribly, Wei Wuxian does not apologise.
Chenqing, his bamboo dizi flute, with attached jade lotus ornament + tassel. Whatever clothes he had on. Probably his travel sack, with silver chunks in a small purse (lol he's never finding that again), edibles (probably also not finding again lbr if anyone was curious enough), a jar of wine (can someone drink this so he just finds a sad empty jar and is like WHY, WORLD), an extra set of robes and socks, an extra hair ribbon, can he have a porn book stashed in there with artful art, asking for science and what I figured he could have been pulling off good ol' Lil' Apple at night. Probably one of his compasses the locals would think is totally broken if they have the concept, some talismans no one local's going to understand I bet, oh! Water container of some kind.
Wei Wuxian | The Untamed (2/2)
Paper Doll Talismans: He can place his full consciousness into a paper doll that he manipulates remotely, but he can also place just a fraction of his consciousness into a paper doll in order to communicate (telepathically or verbally) or otherwise look around or interact with the world around him as a paper doll. Placing his full consciousness to go beyond his direct line of sight means leaving his body vulnerable and seemingly comatose.
Music: Untamed has spiritual creature influencing based on music, and Wei Wuxian manages to both perform this by flute and through the act of whistling. Basically, the melodies he produces are capable of agitating or soothing spirits/resentful energies/puppets (think possessed living persons or persons still alive rendered into a zombie-like state), manipulating them with that sound to some purpose. That purpose may be to seal or settle those energies, or to direct those energies to attack, or anything else that occurs to him. Again noting he can simply whistle to do this, though he prefers the use of a bamboo flute. He can also play on a blade of grass. He can also send energy/ghosts/demons/etc on, settle them, or destroy them through music. His work is primarily aimed at the dead, in some form or another, or those possessed by the dead or the energies of the dead (human or animal).
Inventions: He invented a compass that points toward evil creatures/demons/ghosts/the kinds of things the cultivators went after on night hunts. We see less of his golden qi nets in the present, and probably he can't make something that large with his energy anymore, but back when he had a golden core he could make giant nets of qi either across an area or around a group of people to act as protection. He used to be able to use his binding/bonding invented technique, which generates a single string of qi that can be directed to attach to a target of his choice.
Empathy: Empathy is a memory sharing technique which allow him to enter the consciousness or memory of a ghost, or a living person, witnessing the things they saw and lived through without being able to influence what he sees. Empathy can be mad-making, however, if he can't be pulled back out, and it's more dangerous with another living mind than with the already deceased (presumably, since he had more trouble coming back out with the living A-Jing/A-Qing than he did with the dead Nie Mingjue).
Energy Sensitivity: He's sensitive to different energies in the world, particularly resentful/evil ones and spiritual ones, as he's worked with those extensively. It doesn't mean being able to identify what any energy he comes across means, but areas which have seen death, particularly unrestful death, will resonate. Even stronger resentful or bloodthirsty energies will be headache inducing. He can manipulate these energies in many cases, but not all.
Curses and Purification: Curses are a thing he does not do but something he recognises in series, as curses have a kickback that falls on the one who laid the curse. He's been shown to transfer a curse from someone else onto himself, and was also cursed by his form of summoning to track down those who wronged Mo Xuanyu and cause them to be undone, directly or indirectly. On the flipside, purifying areas or gathering lingering negative energies into specific targets to slowly cleanse an area and allow healthy things to grow is part of what he can do, or else the entirety of trying to farm in the Yiling Burial Mounds would have led to starvation instead of its thin success.
PERSONALITY:
Self-Sacrificing. Often part of what his heroics are involved over, Wei Wuxian even now is a man who sacrifices himself for the sake of those he cares about, and has only just started learning he can ask for help and not tackle every issue on his own. The reflecting over what the cost of his self-sacrificing actions have been over the years is in progress by series end, but by no means finished. He still has low self-value, and believing he's worth caring for is difficult, but not impossible. He cares for people even when they've hurt him and even when he's hurt them, and has been learning how to offer apologies and say thank you for the things given to or done for him in the past or present. He doesn't enjoy watching innocents suffer, and this does tend to learn toward women, children, and normal folks who aren't cultivators. He will intercede when he sees a need, just less thoughtlessly than he once did.
Forward Looking. Wei Wuxian wants to look forward and move forward instead of linger over the past. He's still processing the past, but it's a matter of understanding it and coming to terms with it, then letting it go. While he by no means has the truly terrible recollection that his novel counterpart has, he does have a tendency to want to forget what he considers unimportant to focus on what's worth remembering: the good, the kindness, the love. It's where his younger reputation for being always smiling and shaking off all bad things comes from, and while he's less blithe about it now, he still wants to keep moving forward, and not hold grudges for the past even if he's quieter and more melancholic about the past these days. Seen also with how he tells Lan Zhan, why ask Nie Huaisang about the things he knows/suspects his friend did in order to set up the scene Wei Wuxian walked into, sixteen years late with Cultivationbucks? They don't matter anymore. It's also where his mentality to move forward finding himself in a world that outpaced him, even alone, can be a hopeful move, and one that ultimately brings him back to Gusu Lan and Lan Zhan.
Curious, inventive, intelligent. His sense of curiosity gets him in and out of trouble, because he is perhaps too intelligent (but not wise enough) for his own good. Wei Wuxian shows off less after his "resurrection," but still possesses a keen wit and quick mind, breaking down situations and connections between events to dig at the truth behind them. He's an inventor, inventing new seals, new talismans, energy-sensitive compasses (evil! tracking! it's great), and a whole way of cultivation that relied on redirecting resentful and malign energies instead of relying on spiritual qi from a golden core. This allowed him to manipulate these energies in the living (... because again, zombies weren't allowed, so they're all "puppets" who were maybe alive maybe dead it really is a Question, isn't it) and in the incorporeal dead (he's allowed to manipulate ghosts, at least). He was continuously inventing new talismans and tricks from his teen years up to the point of his "death", and presumably returns to these things now that he's "alive" again.
Emotionally thick. He can have a better grasp on other people's emotions for others, as a general thing, but his sensitivity with regards to himself and others is very low. Part of it is self worth issues and doubt of if he deserves people caring for him again when he managed to hurt everyone he cared about (including getting them killed) sixteen years ago, as a consequence of his actions. That it wasn't wholly his fault or causing doesn't undo the impact those losses had on him, or in (the frankly needed) shaking of his belief and his arrogance over his ability to control and handle resentful energies as he thought he could.
Resigned is more a trait he's working on overcoming, because coming back from "dying" left him resigned to how people perceived him as the Yiling Patriarch, and that he was going to be blamed for all bad things regardless of his ever being involved. By series end he's less resigned and more hopeful again, allowing him to look forward as he prefers to do, and most of that is the support of Lan Wangji and then the younger generation that chose to believe in him from what they knew, and not from what others had said about him. He cannot make up for what happened in the past, but he can do better now, and not repeat mistakes, and that resignation he felt for how things had happened before can now start changing into hope.
Sad but becoming hopeful. He's getting better about this but this man is constantly tearing up, he feels a lot of emotions and has been coping with coming to terms with the truth of events that destroyed him and those he loved 16 years ago, as well as the difficulties he's been working through in present. Sad as a note here is not that his personality is A Big Sad Person, but that he's got a lot of underlying sadness he's still working on based on everything that's happened in his life. He's working through it, has learned to forgive himself for some things, and truly set others in the past, but it comes up for various reasons, and is part of his drinking habits...
Alcohol as a coping mechanism? Yeah. That's Wei Wuxian. He drinks to soothe his thoughts and try to cope with reality, and is not as bad right now as he was in the past, but it's still something he both enjoys, and enjoys socially, and also can turn into a crutch when he just doesn't want to keep thinking about a subject.
There's a big gap between the kind of social he was when younger and the kind of social he is now! He talks with people easily enough, cuts in verbally to conversations, defends people with words, and can be sassy when he wants, but he's not the social leaning butterfly he once was. He's still mouthy, particularly when he wants to get something over with, and still can drive people to annoyance when he aims to, but it's much more deliberate and less frequent as a whole. He's dry, sarcastic, and matter of fact... and then depending on what kind of mood he's in, and how much he's trying to deflect a person, dramatic and playacting toward pouting or laughter or playful accusation to keep a conversation turned away from a topic he doesn't want to speak on. He's more capable of talking about things that were hard for him in the past now than he was before, but he's overall still learning how to do that naturally. He's also less gregarious in crowds, but can fall back into those habits when necessary for actions or a role he's temporarily taking on.
Noting that unlike in other media sources, Untamed Wei Wuxian does not appear to have explicit memory issues. He's got PTSD, he has things he prefers not to remember, but he never personally claims to forget things which don't make sense to forget; instead he deflects by saying, "Don't others say I have a bad memory? Let it be that." Him not recalling where he heard the song Lan Wangji authored and hummed to him in the fake xuanwu's cave has everything to do with him being feverish and passing out at the time, rather than a chronically bad memory. Jiang Yanli summed up his tendency to smile and "forget" the bad to look forward and focus on the good, making it all come down to someone who is more inclined to let go of things than hold grudges, and try to forget what's not worth remembering. Much like what a younger him said to a drunk Lan Wangji: let us forget what's not worth remembering, and remember everything that shouldn't be forgotten. This means he also forgets people he doesn't find worth remembering because why waste brain space on them; coming back around to him not holding grudges without a very good and personal reason, and even then, not being one to fester over them and instead respond and take action. Goodbye, Wen Chao and sidepiece, you died horribly, Wei Wuxian does not apologise.
SAMPLE:
PSL action thread with Jiang Cheng set in canon universe;
Network Sample, from Liburutegia, where Wei Wuxian addresses the network as a whole.
INVENTORY:
Chenqing, his bamboo dizi flute, with attached jade lotus ornament + tassel. Whatever clothes he had on. Probably his travel sack, with silver chunks in a small purse (lol he's never finding that again), edibles (probably also not finding again lbr if anyone was curious enough), a jar of wine (can someone drink this so he just finds a sad empty jar and is like WHY, WORLD), an extra set of robes and socks, an extra hair ribbon, can he have a porn book stashed in there with artful art, asking for science and what I figured he could have been pulling off good ol' Lil' Apple at night. Probably one of his compasses the locals would think is totally broken if they have the concept, some talismans no one local's going to understand I bet, oh! Water container of some kind.
NOTES: N/A