#in thirty years i've had two ships become canon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ibijau · 2 years

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Okay, I’m kinda curious about double xisang xD

it's intended as post canon xisang (who were a couple through the events of the novel) are transported back in time to the year wwx and co were in Gusu, and meet their young selves. It was supposed to be about, like, growing old and changing and also the appeal of that ship at different stages of the story, but I struggled to not write everyone being a bitter asshole so I've set it aside for now

but if you're interested in what's already written:

"Gege, that means we're still together when we're old!" young Huaisang exclaimed.

That took Nie Huaisang out of his fit of crying to instead glare at the boys.

"Who's old? I'm only thirty five, you little brat!"

"That's older than shufu," Lan Huan carefully remarked, his tone and expression making it clear he believed that meant Nie Huaisang was little more than a living ancestor. "I'm glad," he added, turning to young Huaisang with a soft smile. "Everyone says two men never stay long together because they can't marry, but I knew we were different."

Nie Huaisang couldn't refrain a slight grimace at that comment, and dared a glance at Lan Xichen, still glacially silent. At the same time Lan Xichen also looked his way and their eyes met, which appeared to startle the older man out of his shock.

"We are no longer a couple," Lan Xichen coldly informed the two teenagers. "Because he decided I wasn't worth trusting after all."

Young Huaisang whimpered and pressed himself closer against Lan Huan's side, clinging at his lover's robes like a frightened child. Lan Huan for his part appeared nearly unaffected by the news.

"I don't believe you," Lan Huan just told Lan Xichen. "We tell each other everything."

It had been true, Nie Huaisang remembered. He used to tell Lan Xichen even things for which Lan rules dictated he ought to have been punished. And Lan Xichen used to be just as open with him, freely sharing his thoughts and worries, until…

Until the Cloud Recesses burned, forcing Lan Xichen to run for his life. He'd been different after he'd returned. Suddenly, those weeks on the run had become the first thing they couldn't talk about. The first one, but not the last. They also couldn't talk about the war, not while it was ongoing and certainly not after. They couldn't talk about what had happened in Nightless City when Nie Mingjue had been captured by Wen Ruohan and saved by his two sworn brothers. They couldn't talk bout why Jin Guangyao often came to play music for Nie Mingjue.

It wasn't Nie Huaisang who had first started hiding secrets.

"Some day he will stop trusting you," Lan Xichen predicted, looking at the boys with a mix of pity and contempt. "You won't know for a very long time, but someday he'll say he loves you and no longer mean it."

"Even if it were true, that's rich coming from you!" Nie Huaisang exploded, a few new tears spilling on his cheeks. He turned to the boys, looking at his young self right in the eyes. "He's going to fall for someone else," he warned. "But he couldn't have that man, while you were right there, and he'd rather be with someone he had moved on from rather than to be alone."

"I did not love Jin Guangyao!" Lan Xichen retorted. "If you can't even believe me about that…"

"Isn't it worse then, if you loved me and still kept choosing him over me?"

"Every time I knew there was a choice to be made, I chose you! What more was I supposed to do? I killed him for you, Huaisang. How isn't that enough?"

Nie Huaisang stared at the man he loved, taken aback by that question. He still wasn't sure what more he might have wanted Lan Xichen to do, just that there ought to have been more.

"I don't think you're us after all," young Huaisang sniffled, staring at the two adults with open terror. "I would never want Xichen-gege to kill anyone! You're just monsters, you're not us!"

Lan Huan nodded, pale and just as worried as the boy he loved, while Lan Xichen startled at being called a monster, as if it were something he had thought as well.

For his part, Nie Huaisang merely thought that his young self wasn't wrong. They just weren't the same people. Life had changed them. Life, and the choices they'd made. He could barely remember being that boy in front of him, so sure of being loved by his brother and his lover. And young Huaisang just wasn't capable of imagining what horrors laid in wait for him, how lonely he would get, how he would turn into a parody of himself until he would forget what was real and what was an act.

What a blessing it was that these two boys couldn't understand them. They truly were monsters, and they truly shouldn't have been twisted into these mangled mockeries of themselves.

Seeing the terror on those two young faces, Nie Huaisang felt an impulse he thought he was no longer capable of.

He felt the need to be kind.

"It wasn't always awful," he told the boys. "You will be there for each other when loss would have destroyed you. At least, I felt that way," he corrected, looking at Lan Huan. "I don't know what good I was to you, but I tried my best."

#xisang #jau writes #hmm actually maybe I'll give this another shot now that I'm re-reading it XD

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gffa · 6 years

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(i hope it's okay to send you random ass questions! you always give really intersting and thoughtful answers so it's difficult not to :D) i've always seen anakin's and obi-wan's padawan-master relationship as anakin idolizing the person who's taking him in (somewhat similar to what would happen if someone lived with their childhood celebrity crush) and then growing up to emancipate himself, see obi-wan as a human being, being given space to become more independent, until they grow to see each

other as equals. i'm wondering if it's just my shippy ass speaking though because anakin does say that obi-wan is the closest he has to a father, and obi-wan calls him a brother. i always disregard these instances because anakin sounds like he's trying to deliberately rile up obi in the first one to me (something in his tone, i think?) and my queer ass feels like "you were my brother" was only added to "no homo" the "i loved you". but i'm really curious about how other people read theirrelationship pre-clone wars. do you think anakin as a child viewed obi-wan as a father figure? (or, horrible thought, sheev?) is it, like, canon compliant to just ignore the dialogue i mentioned above? idk i think the tl;dr here is that i don't really think much about their master-padawan relationship because i ship them in tcw era but it's at the back of my mind and i'm interested in how you view it?i think i mentioned my ass at least twice in my ask and i want to apologize

It is always okay to send me random ass questions! And to mention your ass as many times as you want! Especially if you’re going to say such kind things, you’re very sweet to do so. ♥It took me awhile to put into words a lot of what I felt with their dynamic for a long time, why it didn’t ping the father/son parallels to me in ways other ships did, despite that I could see why others felt that way. If someone feels like that’s their dynamic, I absolutely get it and I will happily talk to them about the characters on that level only, god knows I’ve had pairings that fall strictly into that category myself.Anakin does say, at two different points, that Obi-Wan was like a father to him--in Attack of the Clones and during the unfinished TCW episodes. And it took me a long while to realize why it just never quite clicked for me, but it’s largely because both times Obi-Wan doesn’t really respond to that and their dynamic never really reflects that in any way we see. They never act like father and son with each other, even as a Master and Padawan, they’re much more of a team who complement each other, they each learn from each other, they each give and take. The very first thing we learn about Obi-Wan and Anakin’s dynamic in AOTC is that Obi-Wan is rescued by Anakin just as often as we can imagine a Master would rescue their Padawan. (”I haven't felt you this tense... since we fell into that nest of gundarks.” "You fell into that nightmare, Master, and I rescued you, remember?”)During Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan says, “You were my brother!” which, lol, that’s never really struck me as being strictly familial, like brothers-in-arms are absolutely a thing and are often very shippy/subtexty.So, you have those three moments of (questionable) framing as a familial thing, which, hey, fair enough! But it’s also weighed against a mountain of the two of them actually ACTING like an old married couple. The beginning of Revenge of the Sith is like thirty minutes of pure banter on the way to Grievous’ flagship and once they’re onboard it just keeps going. (”No loose wire jokes.” “Did I say anything?” “He's trying.” “I didn't say anything!”)(”This time we will do it together.” “I was about to say that.”) Mixed in with a whole lot of, “Leave him!” “His fate will be the same as ours!”You also have it weighed against things like Nick Gillard specifically choreographing their fight like a boyfriend/girlfriend fight where Obi-Wan doesn’t want to hurt Anakin, doesn’t want to have this fight. You have it weighed against that scene were Obi-Wan tells Anakin he’s proud of him and the look on Anakin’s face has no straight explanation that has ever satisfied me.You have it weighed against the ROTS novel--that George line-edited himself!--that says, “Blade-to-blade, they were identical. After thousands of hours in lightsaber sparring, they knew each other better than brothers, more intimately than lovers; they were complementary halves of a single warrior.“And all of that is before we get into some of the supplementary canon stuff because we’ll be here all day if I start quoting Wild Space again.So much of their relationship isn’t textually explicitly about being romantic, but it sure is framed in a way that’s very easy (and sometimes difficult not to!) put in that frame to contrast it at the very least, to still be defined by that framework. “More intimately than lovers” (or the infamous “Obi-Wan woke up staring at what he was pretty sure was Anakin’s butt” scene in the ROTS novel again) may play at contrasting against the idea, but it’s also still framing their relationship in romantic terms, even as it does so. It’s hard not to think of them as romantic when you’re specifically using the term “lovers” to describe them, no matter what direction you take the metaphor in.Even during the Obi-Wan & Anakin comic, when we see them interacting for more than five seconds at a time while Anakin is young, Obi-Wan is pretty clearly not his father, he rather directly refutes that point when asked. He is Anakin’s teacher and every line he says or doesn’t respond to reflect that. Anakin tries to put it into that context sometimes--and my headcanon is basically, “Why does he do that when their relationship doesn’t actually feel at all like a father/son one to me? OH FUCK YOU FOR PROBABLY PUTTING THE IDEA IN HIS HEAD, PALPATINE.” Because he would know that Anakin wants that figure--but is obviously not getting it if he’s coming to Palpatine, yet another indication that, no, Obi-Wan/Anakin doesn’t really work like that--and so would drive a wedge between him and Obi-Wan over it.But really what got me into going from “Ehhh, I don’t ship that at all.” when I started out (I know! I was fairly against the idea of shipping them when I really dove deep into Star Wars about two years ago!) to “Oh, wow, okay, that is super shippy and NOW I JUST WANT THEM TO KISS.” is that we got to see their relationship go from teacher/student to peers while watching The Clone Wars. We see them regularly banter like an old married couple, we see them each depending on the other in a way that’s about two people who are on an even field, we see that their dynamic isn’t left behind as they both move forward, but instead continues to grow.They’re given such narrative importance and emotional weight and, sure, a lot of it comes down to personal interpretation of chemistry--some people are going to see their banter as subtexty, some people are going to see it as familial, both are right for the person doing the interpreting--but a lot of the framing devices and the very consistent lack of actually giving weight to the father/son thing in my eyes means that I can very easily ship them and those lines don’t bother me. They don’t hold much weight and even the characters themselves barely seem to think in those terms, it doesn’t really bear out for me.Personally, I don’t really ship them much pre-TCW, but I definitely think Anakin had some Certain Feelings as a teenager that Obi-Wan very firmly shut down at the time and so Anakin just kind of sat on them and buried them and it rather explains a lot of why he’s so willing to believe that Obi-Wan and Padme would have an affair behind his back despite that they hardly interact at all--because Anakin wants them both, because Anakin sees them both in a romantic light, OF COURSE they would see each other in a romantic light, too! This is backed up for me by bb!Anakin in the comic not really looking at him like a father figure, but like you said, a celebrity crush, that sense of OH MY GOD HE’S THE BEST is positively star-struck.I think you can ignore the dialogue about father figures if you want, but that you don’t really need to. I think it’s Anakin parroting someone else’s words (as he does throughout Revenge of the Sith, there are at least four major points where he’s just literally repeating Palpatine almost word for word) in a way that doesn’t hold water when it comes to how they actually interact. You can tell me all day long that they’re just father and son figures, but when there’s so little in the actual dynamic between them that speaks to me of that, it’s not going to mean much to me. But there is a whole lot of them behaving like how my favorite Old Married Couples act and so, yeah, I’m going to head in that direction instead!

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #obkin #meta #text #anonymous #guess who tried to make this short and totally failed again!#orz #Anonymous

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