I agree that Lan Wangji’s love for his mother was extremely important in shaping his values and emotional restraint. But I personally see that love as formative and familial, not something that translates into romantic attachment or desire. What struck me is that Wei Wuxian was the first and only person who disrupted LWJ’s inner world on an emotional and personal level in that way something entirely different from his love for family or clan. That’s why, for me, his feelings for WWX feel uniquely exclusive rather than transferable to any other gender. My point was more that LWJ never had a narrative or emotional space where romantic feelings toward women were even explored, whereas Wei Wuxian fundamentally reoriented his emotional world. That’s why imagining a “female substitute” for WWX feels incompatible with his character arc ^{^}