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lilapplesheadcannons · 1 year

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The Imaginary Boyfriend

"I have a boyfriend."

Lan Qiren's knife slipped on the dinner plate with an ugly screeching sound. His brother let his piece of steak slip off from his fork, his mouth gaping at the sudden proclamation.

Lan Xichen thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't taken a sip out of his water yet. Looking at the murderous look his mother was casting towards her husband and brother-in-law, they were in for a lecture on proper dinner etiquette expected from adults the moment they got out of the restaurant.

Mrs Lan broke the awkward silence," That's great, A-Zhan. What's his name?"

Lan Zhan shifted in his high chair, "Ummm, his name is..... his name is XianXian."

"That's the name of your bun.. ouch! Honey!"

Mrs Lan, who did amateur theatre in her 20s, conveyed the promise of a slow, painful demise to her husband via a single glance. "That's lovely, darling. Does XianXian study in your school?"

Lan Zhan shook his head, "He doesn't study at all."

He used his fork to spear a piece of chicken before adding as an afterthought, " XianXian draws."

Lan Qiren opened his mouth before closing it abruptly. The rest of the dinner passed without any further interruption. Lan Zhan started to nod off as dessert arrived despite Xichen's best efforts to keep him awake and was fast asleep by the time he was secured in his car seat. Uncle opened his mouth again to say something but seemed to change his mind after catching Xichen's eyes in the rear view mirror.

Later, once Lan Zhan has been deposited safely in his bed, hugging his plush bunny and Lan Xichen has been permitted to stay up another half an hour extra because it's friday, the adults gathered in the living room for a drink before bed.

"He has gotten an imaginary friend," Lan Qiren winced into his drink. "Normal for his age. I wouldn't worry about it."

"An imaginary boyfriend, ha ha."

"I am not worried. And he could be a real friend," Mrs Lan sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

"A new boy? Starting in the middle of the school year? And A-Zhan making friends with him? He doesn't even get along with the Nie kid."

"They just got off on the wrong foot."

All three adults winced this time. It was a good thing the Nies were a close family friend who let bygones be bygones. If it were the Jins or the Wens...

"I just think he might become even more reluctant to get along with his classmates if he's spending even more time inside his own head."

Lan Qiren paused to mull his brother's words. "He'll grow out of it, I am sure. Kids forget things quickly."

Except Lan Zhan proved his uncle wrong. He came down to breakfast on Saturday morning with stories about how XianXian had a mother who was a fairy. In the afternoon, he plopped himself in front of the rabbit hutch and solemnly introduced the bunnies to the drawing of their new parent, a red and black round blob drawn with crayons. At bedtime, Mrs Lan had to kiss 'XianXian' good night as well.

On Sunday, Uncle took both of them to softplay. Lan Zhan took a look at the screaming children and promptly hid himself in a corner of the ballpit. He only mentioned XianXian on the car ride home. "XianXian can climb up the big slide."

At night, 'XianXian' was taken down from his perch on top of Lan Zhan's study desk and was laid down beside his pillow. On a brighter note, Lan Zhan didn't put up his usual resistance to brushing his backteeth once Mother told him XianXian brushed his teeth every night.

The next week, the family was treated with more stories of XianXian. XianXian could eat spicy food. XianXian could draw better than anyone (at this point, Lan Zhan cast a regretful glance at his brother). XianXian was an only child till Wednesday, but by Thursday afternoon, he had gained an older sister and a younger brother. XianXian had parents who were in America. And they would bring toys for Lan Zhan too when they came back. XianXian not only had an uncle, but he had an aunt, too. He was never made to eat bell papers. XianXian loved swimming. XianXian got along with everyone, even HuaiSang.

By week 2, even Lan Qiren was shaken. "He's trying to project his own aspiration on his imaginary friend."

Mrs Lan, who was told by her youngest son only this evening that she was almost as pretty as XianXian, looked slightly miffed. "I just hoped he'd at least be a teenager before he got a boyfriend, imaginary or not..."

They got interrupted by a jubilant Xichen who had wondered in with the cordless phone in his hand. "Mother, Da-ge and A-Sang are going to the beach this weekend. Can we go as well, please?"

Lan Qiren nodded, " We could all use some fresh air."

Xichen removed his palm from the receiver and started urgently speaking into it.

Lan Zhan took the news surprisingly well. Instead of his usual silent tantrum at the prospect of spending time with A-Sang and other children, he nodded sagely saying, "XianXian likes the beach too," before going back to his drawing of another red and black blob.

Lan Xichen was able to spot Nie MingJue and HuaiSang in the car park before their car came to a full rest. He ran towards the boys while they started waving at him. Lan Qiren followed him because leaving a pair of 10 years old in charge of a 5 years old in a beach is just asking for trouble no matter what Lao Nie said about self-reliance.

Mrs Lan yelled at them, " We will see you guys at our regular spot."

Except their regular spot was taken. A bronzed man carrying a baby in a sling was spreading his supplies on a purple beach towel. A girl slightly younger than Xichen frowned in concentration as she dug at the sund with her toy shovel. The man raised his head and smiled at Mrs Lan, showing a crooked canine. She smiled back in response and then started to spread her own beach towel. Lan Zhan solemnly put down his own baby bucket and started helping.

"Nice day, isn't it? I was worried it might get cloudy."

The baby squirmed in its sling and made a dissatisfied mewl. Lan Zhan scrunched his nose before moving to stand closer to his mother. Mrs Lan put her arm around his shoulder, " This is A-Zhan."

"Hello, A-Zhan. This is A-Li, and A-Cheng." The man pointed at his kids. "My wife has taken our nephew for ice-cream."

Mrs Lan opened her mouth, probably to continue with the pleasantries, but she was shocked into silence. Lan Zhan suddenly yelped out a short cry before breaking into a run. Before an aghast Mrs Lan could gather herself to give chase, Lan Zhan was met by a boy his size wearing red and black swimming trunks. The two boys were apprehended by a woman who herded them back towards Mrs Lan.

"A-Zhan, why did you run like that?"

"A-Ying, that's dangerous. Don't run..."

Both sets of parents started at the same time. But they got interrupted by A-Zhan, who proudly declared, "This is XianXian."

Mrs Lan continued to gape. The woman was the first to recover, "Oh my, you must be A-Ying's A-Zhan. He has been talking about you for weeks now."

Lsn Zhan nodded. The woman turned to Mrs Lan, " We don't know how to thank your little boy. You see, poor A-Ying had to move in with us because his parents are on a research trip. We were so worried he'd have a bad time getting along with his new classmates. But, it seems like A-Zhan here was a perfect angel."

Mrs Lan weakly smiled. " Yes, A-Zhan kept talking about his new friend, too. But why does he call him XianXian? "

The man extended a hand to ruffle the boy's already messy hair, "His courtesy name is Wei Wuxian. A-Ying is more of a nickname."

The boy jerked his head away but didn't release his hold on Lan Zhan's hands. The boys started to talk earnestly. Or more like Wei Ying talked while Lan Zhan seemed to absorb every word with his entire being. A-Ying's aunt offered to go get more ice cream to replace the ones she had dropped. Mrs Lan spotted her brother-in-law, leading the small team of children towards them. She relaxed her tense muscles and laid down on the towel; then jerked back up because of Lan Zhan's solemn declaration to the group, " XianXian and I are getting married."

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asideoftrashplease · 1 year

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Detangling JC, his motivations, & his feelings on WWX (i)

JC and WWX have a very fraught history, and while WWX’s role as the narrator makes it very clear what his feelings towards JC are, JC’s feelings towards WWX and motivations seem a lot murkier. He goes from treating WWX as a brother, to mounting a siege in a concerted attempt to take his life. His actions and motivations in the aftermath of WWX’s resurrection are also subject to interpretation. This meta provides argument for my interpretation of his feelings and motivations throughout these events.

LOVE AND BROTHERHOOD

It is clear from the outset that JC cared deeply about WWX (I wish I did not have to make a case for this because it should be obvious, but there are some who believe that JC did not love WWX). Although he holds bitterness and resentment towards WWX due to his family situation and their rivalry, he cares about WWX and is protective of him. This shines through especially in times of mortal peril.

When WWX was trapped in the Xuanwu cave, he travelled without stopping to find people to rescue WWX. The trip should have taken 10 days, but because he drove himself to exhaustion in his desperation to save WWX, he only took 7 days.

When WWX is in danger of being discovered by the Wens after the burning of Lotus Pier, he uses himself as bait to draw them away from WWX despite the risk to his own life, which eventually leads to his capture and the loss of his core.

SO WHERE DID THINGS GO WRONG

Things started to take a turn after the Sunshot Campaign. I believe a few key events caused resentment and confusion to build and grow in JC over time:

WWX’s refusal to carry his sword, which put political pressure on YMJ

His decision to break out the Wen Remnants, without consulting or informing JC, with put more pressure on YMJ

His decision to defect from YMJ, effectively (in JC’s mind) picking the Wens over YMJ and his brotherhood with JC

His actions at Qiongqi Path which killed JZX — while we know from WWX’s POV what happened, JC and JYL have no idea what went down except from the claims of the surviving Jin cultivators

His attack on the 4000 cultivators at the Nightless City, which ultimately cost JYL’s life

It’s evident that JC is increasingly bewildered, angered, and hurt by WWX’s actions. It’s clear that he’s confused, and just CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY WWX IS ACTING THIS WAY. All the while, resentment is building in him that he has to clean up WWX’s messes, all while WWX’s actions undermine him as a leader and brings up childhood insecurities and jealousies. But his love for WWX drives him to continually stand by WWX and believe in him — even grudgingly, complainingly, and with growing resentment. Even up to the attack at the Nightless City, even after JZX’s death, he still seems to believe in WWX.

This last event, the attack at the Nightless City, seems to be the turning point where he stops believing in WWX, so I want to cover this particular event in more detail:

A “pledge conference” is being attended by QHN, GSL, LLJ, and YMJ. This conference is a ceremonial affair, centered around their pledge to eradicate WWX and the Wen remnants. It begins with them honoring the fallen with a toast, but while the other three sect leaders make the toasts, JC goes through the motions of the toast with visible unhappiness, and then conspicuously says nothing to honor the dead.

I feel this action needs to be understood in the context of the ceremony. They are standing in the Nightless City, where their comrades died in the final battle to take down QSW, a battle which WWX contributed to greatly. They are pouring the wine on the ground where the bodies lie to honor the fallen: “Here we honor our fallen. Rest in peace.” (Uncontroversial) “Now in the name of our fallen, we will eliminate the Wens who killed them — and the Yiling Patriarch!” (Controversial because WWX was brother in arms to these soldiers, and JGS is stirring shit because he wants the Yin Tiger Seal.)

JC knows the controversial bit is coming, so while the other sect leaders one by one say things like “rest in peace” and “may they live on” he dumps the wine on the ground and refuses to say anything. He is the only one, of the four with cups, who does not speak.

When WWX appears, the others all draw their weapons, but JC reaction is different: “JC’s pupils shrunk. Blue veins lined the back of his hand.” From this sentence alone, it may not seem clear what he’s feeling, but based on the rest of his actions in this scene, I would guess that he’s shocked and appalled that WWX would dare to appear before such a large and hostile mob, A MOB THAT IS CURRENTLY PLEDGING TO KILL HIM AND SCATTER HIS ASHES, thus recklessly and what seems like arrogantly endangering his own life.

After an increasingly hostile exchange between WWX and the mob, JGS calls for everyone to set up the battle arrays to seal WWX in, with the intention of killing him there. But when WWX calls up the corpses buried under them to defend himself, it’s stated that all the sects were in disarray, except for YMJ, which seems to indicate that WWX’s corpses were not attacking the YMJ delegation — and the YMJ cultivators were not fighting the corpses either.

This all seems to indicate that despite JZX’s death, despite the fact that JC has NO FUCKING CLUE what the hell happened at Qiongqi Path, despite the fact that he’s no doubt been fed lies and biased reports from the surviving Jin cultivators, and despite the fact that WWX is currently unleashing an undead army on all of them — he still believes that there’s another side of the story. He doesn’t even know WHAT that story is, but he believes in WWX— grudgingly, and with growing disbelief, confusion, and incredulity— he still believes, BLINDLY, in WWX.

THE TURNING POINT

In the ensuing chaos, JYL is killed, and WWX finally snaps in his grief, unleashing a hellish and completely uncontrolled bloodbath upon the assembled cultivators. It is estimated that this killed three thousand people, severely decimating the cultivation world’s population.

The siege begins after this attack, and we know from the prologue that the siege was headed by JC, and that he was the one behind key tactical maneuvers (designed using his intimate knowledge of WWX’s weaknesses) that allowed them to eventually sack the Burial Mounds. In the aftermath, he was the main person credited by the cultivation world for the defeat of the Yiling Patriarch. When WWX meets JL at Dafan, he corroborates this by revealing, through the narration, that JGS was the second-biggest contributor to the siege — after JC, who was the biggest contributor.

I know that there are other popular interpretations of JC’s motivations here. I will name two:

He participated in the siege only due to political pressure — after what WWX did at the Nightless City, he couldn’t NOT condemn him or the cultivation world would have turned on YMJ too

He participated in the siege hoping to take WWX alive and bring him back home to discipline privately

But I don’t subscribe to either of these interpretations. I believe he FULLY intended to kill WWX. Firstly, if he was only participating in the siege due to political pressure, why contribute so vitally to the siege, why take a leading role and design tactical maneuvers to bring WWX down? He could have just done as he’d done previously, which was to participate perfunctorily in “opposition” against WWX, but contributing as little as possible, or nothing at all.

Secondly, some may argue that he was trying to capture WWX alive. But before this, he had always given the impression of being extremely cautious, to the point of inaction when maybe action would have been better. JC is VERY risk-averse. His characterization before the siege is that he’d rather do nothing than do something even potentially risky. The intention of everyone else was to kill WWX, NOT to capture him. As such, the risk that WWX would be killed in battle is extremely high. Even if by some miracle, he managed to capture WWX alive despite the best efforts of everyone else to murder him, it would be really difficult to stop the other sects from executing him, and getting permission to take him home and keep him under house arrest. It would be a safer bet to try to sabotage the siege from the inside, which is not what he did. In fact, he did the opposite. He was leading the siege viciously and with intent.

So I believe that he fully intended to kill WWX, which means the turning point was JYL’s death. Up to her death, JC still believed in WWX. After her death, however, the very last we see of him is him clutching JYL’s body, completely in shock, having not yet processed her death. I believe his last words to WWX should hint to us what caused the snap from blind faith to blind hatred. These words were: “Didn’t you say you could control it?! Didn’t you say it would be fine?!” To which WWX (who is having 99 fucking breakdowns all at once) finally admits that he was wrong, and that he can’t actually control it.

My belief is that this incident made JC realize that JYL’s death (and JZX’s as well) was largely caused by WWX’s loss of control over his demonic cultivation, and IMPORTANTLY, JC’s inaction re: WWX’s method of cultivation and his seeming descent into violent radicalism. Despite all the warning signs, the growing escalations, the increasingly violent confrontations with increasingly large death tolls— he continued to believe in WWX, even when he could no longer understand or predict WWX’s actions. Everyone told him “you need to reign him in” “he’s going off the rails” “he’s a danger to us all” and JC didn’t take them seriously because he BELIEVED IN and TRUSTED WWX.

And now his sister is dead, his month-old nephew is an orphan, and WWX has massacred three thousand people in a single night, likely including members of YMJ, in a total loss of control and conscience. I think that was the turning point, the crux of the betrayal.

I believed in you. I defended you. I stuck my neck out for you. But you scorned my help. You rejected and discarded me. You betrayed my trust.

You don’t give a shit about me.

You don’t give a shit about anyone else.

I BELIEVED in you, and YOU BETRAYED ME.

—

NOTE: Right now this meta is getting a little long, so I think this is a good place to maybe cut it in thirds? Part II should cover the siege, WWX’s death, and the 13 years in between, and Part III should cover JC’s actions and motivations after WWX’s resurrection. As the next parts have not been written, I can’t link it! But when Part II is done, I will edit the post to include a link below the cut:

[Part 2 is still in progress!]

#canon jiang cheng #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #yunmeng shuangjie #twin prides of yunmeng #mdzs #meta #man this is fucking depressing #this is written from jc's perspective but i will NEVER stop being sad about WWX #i will never stop thinking about how he was driven to this point #initially you might attribute some of his downfall to hubris #hubris that he thought he could control this dark power #when it was stated no one ever succeeded #but the core reveal subverts this #it makes you realize that maybe the hubris #was tinged with no small amount of desperation #i think he never expected how difficult it would be to LIVE through the sacrifice #to lose his cultivation #he fucking brutalized himself out of love for jc #and he has to live with the trauma of that brutalization #when he happened upon this power #he was desperate to believe that he could keep it #and in the end #demonic cultivation took away EVERYTHING he cared about #it destroyed him and his life completely #and he died alone #in a terribly violent and horrific way

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