u/Due-Refrigerator1953

Read "The Line Between Good and Evil" someone recommended and it is such a fun concept but it's incomplete and last updated in 2023. Every single cultivator racing against time and each other to come out on the top with memories up to their death or the First Siege (if they survived that long.)

Are there any other fanfics like this? If not, someone please write it!!!!

Summary:

Right after the celebration of the successful siege against Yiling Laozu Wei Wuxian, suddenly time reverses. Back to the Sunshot Campaign.

Cultivation World: "....." Uh.Oh

Wei Wuxian: "Ha-Ha"

You go play your own Sunshot Campaign Game, but I, Wei Wuxian, will quit!

Lan Wangji: "Seconded. Hanguang-Jun shall also delete his account."

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48370636/chapters/121999510

I recently started reading a fanfic called Transverse by Kytrin, ShotsofSunshine and it got me thinking (again) about the perception of GusuLan in the cultivation world and in the fandom.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/39781200/chapters/99598392

Please note, this post is not Gusu Lan friendly so if you are a fan, please skip this one. This is mostly spiraling about how cruel the GusuLan can be without any consequences. Please don't try to justify their actions. I know it's a complicated world so nothing is black and white but sometimes a girl's gotta vent.

Anyway, the setting of the story is modern day doctor/engineer Wei Ying dies in modern world and transmigrates into the body of the immortal Yiling Lauzo and meets LWJ. >!This is revealed very early on but I will try to mark it as spoiler. The primary conflict is WWX and LWJ were married as mortals and a-Yuan was their son. Somehow a-Yuan was murdered by a group and WWX kills the group and then shatters their souls so they can never be re-incarnated. Then he submits to his husband's clan, aka GusuLan, for punishment. LWJ begs his clan to let him take WWX's punishment. GusuLan, in their infinite wisdom, decides to teach WWX a lesson so he will never dare use unorthodox cultivation again and whips LWJ to death. The violent loss of son and husband drives WWX insane and he spends the next several centuries tormenting the cultivation world, with Gusu getting the bulk of his attention. Until LWJ is reborn and modern day Wei Ying accidentally kills Yiling Lauzo's soul during the transmigration. From here the plot progresses.!<

This backstory got me thinking about what actually happened in canon. Canon Gusu didn't intend to kill LWJ but death could have been a real possibility. He ended up with permanent disfigurement and phantom pain for the rest of his life. WWX and the cruelty of the cultivation world aside, GusuLan has this reputation of pristine principles, scholar pursuits and basically holier-than-thou but they bury so many skeletons in their monk robes, it's so hypocritical and appalling.

The way LXC was relaying the events leading up to the punishment was making it seem as though LXC, LQR, and the 33 elders who looked favorably on LWJ were looking out for LWJ when they chased him down. I get they were trying to protect LWJ's reputation and maybe even feared WWX would hurt him so they might have thought they were rescuing him from the devil. But what kind of rescue ends up in a brawl that gets 33 elders hurt by the person they are trying to rescue?

LXC didn't say WWX attacked Gusu elders in the cave so it was LWJ vs his clan and it took 33 of them to get hurt before they backed off? I don't believe for one sec that LWJ attacked his clan, so most likely he was defending any attacks against WWX where the elders were probably trying to kill WWX (I get it, massacring a group tends to lead to people wanting to kill you back, again WWX is irrelevant to this convo). And then when he went back to get his punishment, they decide to whip him to the brink of death for a fight they definitely instigated and didn't back off until 33 (I can't get over it taking taking every single elder attacking and getting hurt before they backed off). LXC and LQR probably thought the whipping was better than execution or expulsion from the clan but honestly, was it though? Brutal torture followed by years of recovery seems more cruel than a clean cut death or expulsion.

This also feels like the Papa Lan sentencing Mama Lan to years of solitary imprisonment and keeping her kids away as "kind" and "saved her life", instead of giving her the actual mercy of a quick death.

JGY and the Jins got their just ridicule from the cultivation world but the GusuLan clan maintained their pristine image despite the barbaric crimes they commit against their own clan.

If you actually read this through, please share your thoughts and if you read any fanfics where GusuLan actually gets called out on it by their own clan members and maybe self reflects and improves. I don't mean the ones where LXC and LQR are innately good and just people (love me some good LXC and LQR novels but it's very not cannon, so not looking for that). Thanks!