This is a non-exhaustive list of some common ‘quirks’ or habits that can give away a character’s military experience. Wrote it up for myself and it’s particularly useful when I want to show instead of tell. These are based on first person accounts from several vets! Thought others might like to use it too for a reference :D Ones with * or ** came up particularly often.
Like any guide, it’s just that - a guide, not a set of rules! A character is unlikely to do all of these, and other factors like ADHD, trauma, or just personality might effect what sticks. People are endlessly diverse!
Eat, Drink, Dress, and Rest
*High tolerance for physical discomfort
** Eat very fast, and aren’t picky about the taste
**Cansleep anywhere - on a helicopter, in enemy territory, up high, underground, when it’s loud, when it’s quiet
* Can operate effectively without sleep for over 24hrs, or with erratic and limited sleep for days
** Wake up early, 0500-0700; Wake up quickly and ready for action
* Hair cut regularly. Beards stay clean shaven (alternatively some may avoid shaving when out of uniform)
** Dress practically and neatly, jackets buttoned/zipped up, ironed, polished
Take hat off indoors
Organization and Talents
Gearhead
Gun nut
Detail oriented
**Pockets are meticulous. The same thing always goes into the same pocket, for easy reach. Pockets never full to bulging. Carry multitool.
** Hands stay out of pockets - ready. (Hands in pockets is forbidden in the military. Some Special Forces may keep their hands in pockets, as their ‘grooming’ rules are less enforced. Because they can)
Alwayscarry things with left hand (and ”southpaws” must learn to use standard right-handed weapons)
** Know how to clean house and keep it organized (may choose not to out of uniform)
** Can make bed and shower fast
Organize clothes to be able to dress and maneuver their own space in pitch black (Navy specifically)
Know how to sew basic repairs (i.e. a button)
Layout items before packing. Tight roll clothes. Pack efficiently
**Canread maps effectively, may prefer them to a GPS, use landmarks
Deadlines not always considered concrete (There is a military mantra, “Hurry up and wait.” Often one would be told to complete something or arrive somewhere at a certain time, but nothing would happen due to someone else’s task meant to be finished earlier still being incomplete)
** Alternatively (or in tandem), arrive 5-30 minutes early to every event
Things kept packed securely in the car, “ready for sea” and “heavy rolls” (Navy specifically)
Routines and Social
** Respect for the “Other” or “Them” - other religions, cultures, races, and ethnicities - had to work crammed together with a diverse group that may have strongly opposing viewpoints, and learn to trust each other to have their backs in dangerous situations (For many, military is their first real experience with different cultures and beliefs)
*Respect≠Like.Will go above and beyond for a respected leader, even if they are disliked
Deeply suspicious of red tape, bureaucracy, and bosses on power trips, and will only do the minimum required for these
** Low tolerance for slacking/job skirting
* Volunteer other people for tasks, and willing to be volunteered for things
Don’t ask people to do things they aren’t willing to do themselves
Stillfollow orders of bosses they dislike. Still have the backs of coworkers they dislike
** Like clear orders, responsibilities, chain of command, and penalties
* Have Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C
Actions matter morethan ceremony; definite respect for processions, but excessive reverence for the flag/anthem/etc viewed as posturing rather than true patriotism
High tolerance for boredom
** Adaptable, high stress tolerance, work efficiently, self reliant
** Avoid having their back to an opening (windows/doors/etc) or sitting anywhere someone can sneak up on them from
*Avoid loud, crowded areas, check perimeters, barricade doors, sleep last in a group (may coincide with PTSD)
Always walk on the right side of a road/grocery aisle/etc
Stand at parade rest, walk cadence, walk fast
* Walk quietly, even in boots, sneak quickly (military crouch run)
De-escalation in violence - in protective armed situations the standard is: 1) multiple warnings, 2) warning shots, 3) shoot to incapacitate. Shoot to kill is a last resort. (not following these steps could get an ally or potential ally killed) In verbal disagreement, resolve an issue before it escalates
* Wariness toward and tendency to feel Other’ed by civilians
* Immediate acceptance toward other military, expectation of shared values
Vernacular
Observe before speaking in a situation, only speak if it seems significantly important to
Refer to people as “Sir” or “Ma’am”
** Speak directly, makedirect eye contact (sometimes comes off as rude, often intimidates)
* Don’t take criticism or disagreement personally, expect others not to, either, and will point out flaws even to superiors (but again, orders are respected)
** Clear communication, acknowledge messages by replying, even if that’s just a thumbs up or down
** Swearing. Lots of swearing. Every other word is swearing
** Dark sense of humor, andracist/sexist jokes -not indicative of individual’s actual belief system or violent tendencies
Unbothered by angry yelling, angry quiet people are more concerning
** Point with ‘knife hands’, not just a single finger
** Use a 24 hour clock instead of a 12 am/pm; i.e. 0800 hours, not 8am (Called ”Military Time” in the US)
Describe locations by o’clock directions, i.e. dog standing at 6 o’clock
* Write out dates as day-month-year (US usually does month-day-year) i.e. 21Oct57
**Usephonetic alphabet to spell things out, or at least have it memorized
** Habitually use military terms orsayings, including:
Good to go - Mission ready, ready to proceed
Squared away - Compliment indicating exemplary service
Popping a smoke - Need to get out of here [From using smoke grenades to call helicopters for extraction]
For fanfic purposes, I’m soliciting opinions on why Garrus *should* shoot Sidonis. Everyone who’s annoyed that Garrus never gets to shoot Sidonis in fanfiction: here’s your chance to talk me into doing it!
…er, well, to try to talk me into doing it. I *may* have used the wrong Shepard for that… I’ll see!
clarification before i Get Into It, are you looking for reasons shepard should let garrus take the shot, or guidance for reasons behind it for the story as a whole?
Both really, but particularly why Shepard should let him or even encourage him.
excellent, my time has c o m e:
1. By the time they’re going after Sidonis Garrus has had plenty of time to think. The whole “oh he’s so angry on the mission he’s not thinking clearly” gets played up, but he’s had most likely weeks at minimum to think about and plan his course of action while not under duress or being affected by having Sidonis within immediate reach. He’s acting on a decision he came to while in a calmer headspace, so that decision should be trusted as being informed and what he really wants.
2. Shepard respects him and his choices. If he says this is how he wants to play it (see above), Shepard should have no reason to doubt him. In addition, Shepard doesn’t have the full story, all the details, the ins and outs that are informed by living it - Garrus does. It’s his choice to make, not Shepard’s, and Shepard would/should realize this as both a military person and a friend.
3. Garrus led his own missions on Omega, so this is hardly his first one. He can lead a mission and keep his head on under fire. His choices are not compromised by being on a mission or “in charge.”
4. Garrus is an ADULT. He can make his own god damn decisions - his own mistakes, if you insist on considering the Sidonis thing as such. It’s not our/Shepard’s job to tell him what to do or try to teach him a lesson at every opportunity.
5. The mission endpoint/goal was discussed ahead of time; Shepard came in fully knowing how Garrus wanted to play it. If they wanted to express concerns they should have been brought up and fleshed out in a pre-mission briefing, not in the middle of the mission.
6. On that note of compromising the mission: getting in the way of his shot. No warning to Garrus, going against his plan/instructions - that’s just fucking shitty??? Questions of respecting decisions aside, blocking the shot could give Sidonis a chance to get away that he wouldn’t have had if they’d stepped clear when appropriate, leading to mission failure - if you can’t see how this sort of thing is a big no-no in a combat/military setting, I don’t know what to tell you.
7. Something big it seems that everyone tends to forget: you the player may know that Garrus will remain loyal no matter your choice, but Shepard would not. Betraying Garrus’s trust on this could ruin their friendship or even his choice to remain on the Collector mission (I’ve read a few fics where Garrus takes time away from the Normandy after the Sidonis mission because of anger at the outcome - love that idea). If you can’t see Shepard respecting his decision, at least realize that from a practical standpoint, letting Garrus do what he decided he wants to do is the best way to make sure Shepard doesn’t lose him entirely.
8. The point of the loyalty missions is for everyone to have a clear head going into the relay, and I think that if Garrus is going to regret the outcome of the mission, he’s MUCH more likely to regret (and would experience more regret from) not taking the shot in line with his plan when he had the chance, than he is to regret going through with what he planned on and dealing the justice he feels his team deserves. For one thing, he’s very practical - plans are his Thing. Two, he’s not that self-reflective; he’s more likely to just move on than spend time ruminating now that action has been taken.
9. A point I’ve seen made in a couple of fics: Sidonis sold Garrus out, and effectively almost got him killed - almost made Shepard lose Garrus. And that’s not to mention the mental damage the whole incident caused. If Garrus didn’t want the shot for himself, Shepard could easily want to kill/hurt Sidonis themself for what he did to their friend.
I searched my blog for other posts discussing the Sidonis issue, and found two (some points may have been repeated between there and here lol): post 1,post 2
If you want to take a look at fics where Sidonis dies to see how other people have explored it, I have some listed on this rec list. Another fic I need to add to that list that I’d recommend especially given your question : illuminated in scars, a face aligned [13.8k, chapter 11 specifically for the topic at hand, but the whole thing is worth the read]; the ideas explored are based on a line in the French version that’s missing from the English version of the mission.
Okay, so I just finished watching the last episode of OFMD for the thousandth time and I just remembered a review I read before it came out that teased Stede getting a more comedic story in the episode while Ed got a darker one, and having watched that, it’s actually not 100% true, but it is super interesting because I thought the same thing until this rewatch.
The first two thirds of the episode, Stede is 100% the dramatic crux of the episode. After everything that happened in the last few minutes of episode 9, where his guilt completely overpowers him and we see him at his lowest so far in the whole show, it’s devastating to see him trying to force himself back into those strict social guidelines that we know he hates so much for the sake of two people who would clearly have been happier if he didn’t (Ed and Mary.) Seriously, this is probably him at his darkest. He pulls a knife on an innocent man. His family painted him out of their portraits. His wife wants to keep pretending he’s still dead. His daughter hates him and his son doesn’t know who he is. It’s depressing as all hell.
Meanwhile Ed is comparatively pretty lighthearted. He’s clearly heartbroken, but it’s not anywhere near as devastating as any of the stuff happening with Stede at that point. The crew are still supporting him in his awkward song-writing and crying in blanket forts. His talk with Lucius shows that he has an actual support structure for the first time in his life. And most importantly, for a while he actually seems to be getting better. He doesn’t immediately lose all his development from throughout the series. He gets genuinely excited about the crew putting on a talent show and seems like he wants to be a part of it. Most vitally, he asks them to keep calling him ‘Edward,’ which is as we all know the name he uses when he’s willing to be open and vulnerable with people.
The beauty of the episode is the switch we get in two consecutive scenes; Stede coming out to his wife, and Ed killing Lucius.
The coming out scene is unironically beautiful. It walks the line between being a revelation which was incredibly brave of Stede to do, and him just casually admitting a fact that he now knows to be true. When Mary hugs him, it’s really the apex of his character arc. He can finally let go of the guilt he feels about abandoning her, knowing she has a better life without him in it, and he’s no longer confused and tormented by his feelings for Ed. He finally lets himself be driven wholly by his heart and not by what he thinks is expected of him. By the end of the episode, this is probably Stede at his best emotionally. So from here, he gets a comedic arc where he gets to go all out faking his death. And it’s hilarious. The last impression we get of him in the series is him finally free, ready to return to his love, something unambiguously happy. And all of the comedy of the last few scenes with him is still present in the viewers’ minds, so we naturally associate his story now with all the lightness and brevity associated with the show’s humour.
In the meantime, immediately after the scene that gives us Stede at his best, we get the scene that gives us Ed at his worst. Him killing Lucius hurts so much, not only because it’s Lucius and we all love him, but because it’s so counter to everything Ed has shown himself wanting to be until now. He claims he doesn’t kill people in spite of evidence to the contrary, and out of the entire crew, he’s probably the closest with Lucius out of everyone minus Stede. He’s the one who convinces Ed to tell Stede how he feels about him. He’s the one who sees Ed crying in his blanket fort. He’s the only one who snaps at him when he’s making bad choices. So the sudden shift in their relationship portrayed so beautifully by Edward just smiling as he pushes him overboard is devastating, because if Ed doesn’t care about Lucius anymore, who does he care about?
The scene with Izzy immediately afterwards only makes it worse, because right now, he agrees with Izzy, but he’s still willing to mutilate him to prove a
point; he doesn’t care about anything anymore. And Izzy understands that. His glee immediately afterwards is proof that he’s won, and he knows he’s won. Blackbeard is himself again. From there, it’s all downhill as he kills off every part of Stede he has left, from taking his ship, to destroying his books, to leaving his crew to starve. Our last image of him is him alone in his room, after adding a bloodied heart to his flag as a literal way of expressing to the world that he will never love anything again, crying at a picture of Stede’s lighthouse, a parallel to the closing shot of Stede stood on his boat with one hand raised, emulating a lighthouse as he prepares to lead his crew away from danger, proving that even after everything he did to close himself off, he’s still fundamentally broken. Symbolically, our last shot of Edward is a man who has driven all of the light out of his life, and our last shot of Stede is a man who is returning with a newfound light in himself.
This structure was so well-done here, because honestly, giving all of the comedy to Stede and all of the drama to Ed would have been a disservice to both of their characters. Their arcs in this episode oppose each other perfectly, and the weight of comic relief is passed evenly between them, which is so much more satisfying on both a narrative and character standpoint
This is basically a longwinded way of saying, I love this show, we need a season 2.
Also I refuse to believe Lucius is actually dead. #LuciusLives.
So, Microsoft is terrible. Yes yes, the oldest claim in the world.
But specifically… I just hate how Windows 10 tries to conflate and confuse web searches with things on one’s own computer. The start menu should never do anything related to web-searching, especially if it purports to try to give examples of things that are on my hard drive!
This will make old, computer-illiterate people more malware-vulnerable. You have to maintain a strong distinction between “things that are on this computer (and maybe even included in Windows)” (safe, one hopes, or you already got pwned by it, probably), and “things on the web” (scary, dangerous, not to be trusted at all).
Eroding that barrier in the UI is awful. It just FEELS like a violation every time I start typing into the start bar, and it tries to show me ANYTHING web-related. My computer is NOT just an internet-portal! It has tons of stuff on it, and when I’m interacting with the OS, I ONLY want to see things that are already on here!
If I wanted to see something online, I would go to my browser! All the online stuff should be segregated into the browser!
Specific programs can access the internet; that’s fine. But my OS’s functions and interface should JUST be about the things that are already on my computer.
i haven’t used this myself but i’ll be looking into it
Literally spent multiple hours lobotomizing my Windows reinstall when I upgraded recently, the amount of awful shit they had in nowadays makes me long for the age of win98, when software was merely bad, rather than actively harmful.
the exact setting in shutup10 for this issue is “Disable extension of Windows 10 search with Bing” it’s at the very bottom under misc.
There are 2 programs that will turn Windows 10 from an advertising riddled, bloated mess into a useful tool.
With one click, this will remove ALL THE BLOATWARE Windows comes with. Seriously, you need NONE OF THESE apps, and if you do, you can just uninstall all the ones you don’t need individually.
This program will give you almost complete control over Windows 10’s behavior. Disabling the web search in the start menu, op rightfully complained about, is just one of the many things this thing can do
For example, with a single setting you can turn off any ads from microsoft, system-wide
It is a powerful tool, but it can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily every single setting comes with an explanation about what it actually does, and most settings can be easily reversed.
Nothing I’ve read has changed me more than “you do people a favor by accepting their help” like I repeat this constantly to so many people because it’s true!!! People like to feel useful, they like to feel kind, they like to feel like they have an ability to impact people’s lives so just let them!! Not everything is a thing to be owed back — accept people’s kindness without making a competition out of it
Just wanted to share a tip I know about how to make the Quarter Tile Placement Cheat on all the time so you just have to press Ctrl + F when you want to use it without having to type in a cheat each time.
Many of you may know that adding “setquartertileplacement on” to your userStartup.cheat doesn’t work, so I’m going to tell you where you can put it that does work, in case you didn’t already know!
So, head to Origin Games\The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\Config and open up the file called “globalProps.xml” with a text editor, I recommend Notepad++. You should probably make a backup of this file first before making any changes, just in case.
In this file, scroll to the bottom and you should see a line that says:
Simply change the false to true and save the file and that’s it! The Quarter Tile Placement cheat will always be on without you having to type it in ever again! Simply toggle it on and off with Ctrl + F!
Hope that helps at least someone! I was telling my friend @morepopcorn about this trick and I couldn’t find the website where I initially read about how to do this anymore so she suggested I should make this post as it might not be common knowledge.
H05.bundle & H06.bundle. I open them up and saw everything was there all the funny elf’s clothing, kimonos, hats..etc but none of it was showing up in game.
I did some further investigation and found the culprit here
skins.package file is the wrong one. It’s only base game! *head desk*
So I grabbed my Happy Holidays disc off the shelf and loaded it up on my desktop because my laptop does not have a DVD drive. I opened Windows explorer and copy the setup.exe to my desktop then transfer it over to the laptop. It wouldn’t install and told me I already had Happy Holidays installed. *sigh*
Light bulb moment!
I removed H05.bundle & H06.bundle from the bin folder then tried again. This time it did installed. Once that was done I opened the skins.package it just installed and look inside and began comparing the files. It turns out the only difference is the Property Set files (GZPS) were added to unlock the outfits.
My outfits were now back! :D So I copy the new skins.package to desktop I then open Origin and use the evil updater which we all knows really just repairs the game each time. Once it finished I just swapped out the skins.package with the Happy Holiday one and everything still works!
So maybe someone who is more SimPE savvy and with better eye sight can come up with a fix.
If any of you would like to try to create a fix or just like to swap out the skins.package and see if that fixes it for you without having to install Happy Holidays pak. You can grab the one from Happy Holidayshere @ Box
If the swap the files without installing the pak works please let me know! If not let me know too and I will poke around some more and see what other changes might be needed.
I learned this trick from this cute cabinby@saturnfly-blog on MTS. Here’s the tutorial for houses on a foundation. Version for houses without foundations is under the cut. :)
Mini-tutorial: How to change light settings / light colour for custom TS2 lamp using SimPe.
It’s very easy. You replace the name inside Light NamesandcLightRefNodewith another TS2 light name. You’ll find the light names inside custom lamps you have in your game (those that work properly, ofc) OR you can clone a TS2 lamp and inspect the light name. Use the light name found in CRES / cLightRefNode, NOT in STR Light Names.
In most cases replacing the name inside CRES / cLightRefNode is enough to make it work - that’s the most important bit. Buuut.. it’s good practice to fill out the STR# Light Names as well.
More info, Light names and sample pics below the cut!
(by the way, has anyone else noticed that it actually says unnammed, not unnamed?)
So, here’s an issue that you might have, at least if you have an edited version of WantTuning.package that is not updated for your latest EP/SP. Usually, that is M&G and the specific numbers you see are 10112 and 10113.
The way to fix this, which I want to credit someone else with but I don’t remember who and the reason I’m making this tutorial is because I keep forgetting how to fix this and I want to be able to explain it when people ask and, is to simply add the text strings for those categories.
Open up your edited copy of WantTuning.package in SimPE and open UI Data. If you scroll down a little less than a third of the way, you will find a categories section, and at the bottom of that you will probably see a line saying 10111 and Playground Equipment. You need to add two lines after that:
It took me the entire day to reinstall the game on my new computer, to make all the adjustements for it to work on Windows 11, find the right settings with the Graphic Rules Maker, and… my game loads twice faster from Windows to neighborhood view, then it loads at least TEN TIMES faster to enter a lot, everything runs so smoothly, even in very heavy CC lots and neighborhoods, with all settings at high, Origin downloading the Sims 4 at the same time, talking to my best friend on Discord, recording a video… like… IS THIS HEAVEN ?! I’m about to cry. Tears of joy of course. But still !
I think the next week (or maybe even the next month) will be about enjoying my game and nothing else. I’m so, so, so happy, you can’t even imagine !
Perhaps you would be willing to share how you made Sims 2 work on Windows 11. There was someone asking for help with getting their game to work with Windows 11. Thanking you in advance
Then the last part of @anibats tutorial (the part about the dxvk file) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac1PyUxKoNU except that I wrote 16384 instead of 8192 in the file she talks about and in the Graphic Rules Maker as I now have 32Gb of RAM.
Grant “Everyone” full control to the TSBin Folder before copying. Otherwise, Windows may lie () about copying the d3d9.dll file to the folder. You’ll know you haven’t done this if the d3d9.dll file looks like it is there but no log file or cache files are generated.
If “Everyone” doesn’t appear, press “Edit” and then “Add” then type in “Everyone”, press OK, and “Everyone” should appear as an option you can edit the permissions on.
If you did not grant “Everyone” access, DXVK really might not work and/or crash.
⚠️If you had launched the game before granting “Everyone” access and after copying the DLL, you will be in a ditch. Get out of the ditch by deleting the “%localappdata%\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES” folder. You can get there by putting that path into Windows File Explorer’s address bar.
That was the only part that was useful to me, but it worth reading it all just in case.
My Graphic Rules settings are exactly these if it helps :
Reblogging in case I need this sometime!
Good idea! Reblogging too, in case I need it!
How different are the settings from the ones you used for Windows 10? And do you mind sharing the file number/folder size for your Downloads folder? I haven’t been able.to use anywhere near as much cc without the game crashing as I was with Win 7 & 8, which is highly distressing for this cc addict.
I never used Windows 10, I was still using Windows 7 24h ago x) My Downloads folder size is 8Go. It was 14Go one year earlier, and a very few crashing. I was actually doing all that was possible for my computer to do nothing else than playing the Sims when I wanted to play : no software loading a startup, restarting my computer right before lauching the Sims, defragmenting my drives with O&O Defrag every week, game installed on a SSD… that was pretty much it. Then my game started to pinkflash and crash like two months ago, which was a surprise because it was running nicely for years. Anibats video helped a lot (I used the same settings as her). Much less crashes, but still very laggy, because my computer was dying I guess.
Saving for later.
I am getting a new PC this year (finally) and will have this problem too.
Reblogging for reference, too. I’m also getting a new PC, hopefully sooner rather than later (I know what I want and I have the means, I just need to get my sh… act together), so I know I’ll need this eventually.
Here’s the thing: romance is not inherently interesting.
It’s not automatically compelling.
Romance is one of the hardest things to write, but if you’re clever and careful and pay attention, romance can also be one of the most powerful tools a writer can wield. Not only because love is a powerful and complex emotion worthy of exploration—although it is that—but because romance can function as plot, conflict, character motivation, development, world-building, etc. It can do so much heavy lifting for you, and in a way that is engaging, evocative, and tone-setting.
But you can’t simply cry “Love!” and wait for the applause. You gotta earn it.
Got cool stickers? Do you get anxious about trying to decide where to stick them? Do they just live on the sticker sheets forever, gathering shameful dust in your drawer?
THERE IS HOPE! I saw this on Reddit.
What you need are magnetic sheets.
Now, take your stickers:
And stick them on to the sheets:
Trim them down:
And now you have magnets! All the fun of stickers with none of the commitment!
Mostly in the context of Mo Dao Zu Shi, although you could apply this to other wuxia/xianxia as well.
I’ve seen a lot of people pointing out the so-called “hypocrisy” of the Lan Sect, with two main examples: Lan Wangji’s punishment, and allowing the destruction of the Wen Sect. I would argue that by ancient Chinese morality standards, the Lan Sect remained perfectly righteous throughout. Just as you should not apply modern morality to a medieval fantasy story (I don’t know or remember GOT very well but imagine getting mad at Ned Stark for being a murderer), you should not apply modern Western morality to a wuxia/xianxia/xuanhuan story.
Let’s start with Lan Wangji’s punishment, since that’s somewhat easier to address. First of all, recall that Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren specifically selected thirty-three elders who had watched Lan Wangji grow up and cared about him. Even with his ridiculous cultivation level, there is no way that Lan Wangji could severely injure thirty-three elders who were actually out to get him – even by sheer numbers they would overwhelm him. Clearly they were unwilling to hurt him.
Now you might think this is a bit self-contradictory. After all, they did hurt him by punishing him! Quite badly! Recall that plenty of people saw Lan Wangji drag Wei Wuxian off, postponing the latter’s death by three months. The other sects simply let the Lan Sect handle the matter internally, trusting in them to see justice done. The Lan Sect couldn’t do nothing – they had to give the other sects some kind of exchange.
In other stories of this genre, (and often on characters without the protagonist halo) characters could be executed or kicked out of the sect for injuring an elder (let alone thirty-three, and after helping a mass murderer escape punishment). And when someone is kicked out of the sect, they are erased from the family records and have their cultivation base destroyed so they cannot use the skills the sect taught them to continue to do evil (that would be bad for the sect’s reputation also). So the thirty-three strikes from the discipline whip are enough to keep the other sects from complaining that the punishment was too light and Gusu Lan is protecting its own over enacting justice, while at the same time causing minimal harm to Lan Wangji and his reputation. The three years of seclusion further assisted in this – rumors die down when the subject isn’t around, and Lan Wangji already has two decades of impeccable reputation behind him. Three years gave him and the cultivation world time to heal, so that everyone could more or less forget about what happened. In addition, while seclusion sucks from a mental health perspective, I would argue it would be worse for Lan Wangji to be out in the world constantly hearing about how much Wei Wuxian was hated and how glad everyone was about his death. Three years later, everything had more or less blown over, and gossipers had moved on to more recent topics.
(Sidenote: The Lan Sect was also VERY kind to Su She, and look how he repaid them… by using their cultivation methods to do evil.)
Now let’s talk about the Lan Sect’s response to the situation with the Wen remnants.
There’s a saying that comes from a book describing propriety (《礼记》, specifically 《礼记·曲礼上第一》) that explains attitudes toward revenge.
父之讎，弗与共戴天；兄弟之讎，不反兵；交游之讎，不同国。
With the murderer of your father, you should not exist under the same sky; with the murderer of your brother, you should not return to grab a weapon; with the murderer of your friend, you should not exist in the same nation (without trying to kill them).
Wen Ruohan killed Nie Mingjue’s father, so Nie Mingjue did everything in his power to kill Wen Ruohan. But on his way to take revenge, he also killed many Wens, some of whom most definitely had sons. Nie Mingjue is allowed to get his revenge, and so are they. This can create a cycle of grudges, until many generations down the line two major families have deep grievances between them, and yet no one remembers the origin. The cycle only ends when one side is completely destroyed, and no one remains to take revenge. So taking out all the Wens at the beginning could be argued as the best method, since it minimizes casualties. By cutting off the cycle at the start, the least number of people suffer and die. (Yes, this is a bit counterintuitive.) How were the Jin or the Lan to know that the Wen remnants didn’t plan on taking revenge? By all rights they should be honor-bound to. Perhaps they should have eliminated them in a less cruel way, but if anything that makes Wei Wuxian the worst offender since he definitely went quite far in killing Wen Chao, and did far worse than the Jins did to the Wen remnants.
In this way, the Lans were still quite righteous. They did not participate much in the elimination of the Wen remnants, but for the reasons I described they could hardly argue against such an action.
(Sidenote: You may remember Xue Yang’s extermination of the Chang Clan. Xiao Xingchen is generally considered one of the most just and kind characters in the series, with the least war crimes (by modern Western standards) under his belt. Yet even he said, if Chang Ci’an cut off your finger, then you should cut off his finger! Or if you are still angry, cut off his arm! Or kill him! But why did you kill his entire family? So there’s an in-canon example of revenge for you.)
Let’s take another angle. One of the most severe punishments the Emperor could carry out in ancient China was called 株连九族, I think this is translated as “nine exterminations”. It’s only been carried out a few times in history, and is usually as a consequence of treason or plotting treason. The perpetrator, their entire extended family (so this includes servants), their teachers and students, and sometimes even neighbors are executed. I think upwards of three thousand people can be executed.
(Sidenote: this is why there’s a saying that accepting students 收徒 or studying under a master 拜师 are not casual decisions – if you choose incorrectly you could lose your head!)
By contrast, the allied sects were quite lenient on the Wens – they really only went after the main family. And while what the Wens did isn’t really “treason”, I would argue it’s worse than a single traitor trying to kill the Emperor. But the assembled sects didn’t even go after their servants, the minor sects that were their “co-conspirators”, or any of the huge multitude of people who were affiliated with the Wens. By Ancient Chinese standards, they were quite lenient (which is, again, odd to think about).
My main point is, most people who complain about how “hypocritical” the Lan Sect are miss the point. “Righteousness” by modern Western standards is not the same as “righteousness” by ancient Chinese fantasy standards. I hope that Western fans can consider that, just as you do not judge works such as Lord of the Rings by modern morality standards, you should not judge Mo Dao Zu Shi by modern Western morality standards.
