Still pondering LXC in seclusion pondering the question of NHS. Contrary to rumors of blorbo feelings (alas, I’m fond of LXC but he barely cracks my top ten favorite CQL characters) the actual reason I think LXC is not angry at NHS has nothing to do with whether or not I think he’s capable of the cognitive dissonance of feeling both both guilt and anger at the same time. This is the cognitive dissonance novel, your honor! Half of the named characters are juggling with at least three contradictory emotions/ideas at any given moment. (Although I do think in fact he has a hard time with being mad specifically because lmao, that man does not have easy access to his anger.) Nor do I think it has anything to with what the correct emotions are to have in this scenario (no such thing) or whether NHS deserves any anger from LXC (is this even a question? Obviously yes. But deserve’s got nothing to do with it).
It’s that I think anger towards NHS doesn’t make sense to Lan Xichen in Lan Xichen’s present understanding of himself, in the way he sees NHS, and his interpretation of the relationship they have. I think the primary question that’s going to haunt LXC about NHS is “Why didn’t Huaisang come to me with his suspicions about his brother’s death? Why didn’t he try to seek justice with help from me, Nie Mingjue’s oldest friend, someone he’s leaned on for years? Is there something about the way I presented myself that made him think I wouldn’t believe him, or worse, that I would put him in danger by sharing this with A-Yao? Did he believe that I would compromise my morals for A-Yao, excuse the murder, choose A-Yao over justice for Mingjue, and if so, what would that belief say about me?”
NHS’s choice to go up against JGY by himself is inexplicable to LXC because he doesn’t know NHS as well as he thinks he does. Why would someone as helpless and incapable as NHS try to go it alone, when LXC was right there, unless there’s some fault in LXC that he himself has failed to perceive? Some disconnection between the person Lan Xichen thought he was, the person he strove to be, and the way someone so close to him apparently actually saw him?
(Meanwhile, while I think it’s very fun if at some point LXC was NHS’s primary suspect for the Da-ge murder, I don’t think his otherwise very telling choice not to go to LXC has anything to do with LXC, or NHS worrying that LXC would out him or side with JGY! It’s that what NHS wants is revenge, not justice. He wants a vengeance that feels proportional to his brother’s suffering, something that matches the scope of his own grief. There’s no one out there that he trusts to feel the same—that JGY not only needs to die, but needs to die as badly as possible—and therefore there is no one that he can trust to help him. I think NHS actually has LXC’s number exactly, not that LXC realizes this, and that is that LXC would help him get justice, but would never have helped him get revenge.)
As an ardent Jiang Cheng enjoyer, I can certainly testify to how delicious a potent cocktail of conflicting love/hate/anger/guilt can be in a fictional character. But I think what’s going on with Lan Xichen is even more interesting than that, and the reason that he falls apart so badly he keeps going into seclusion over and over again (despite attempting to drag himself out of it) is because the question of whether he was wrong to trust, and whether he himself was worthy of trust, thrusts him into a shattering self-identity crisis that simply does not leave much mental room for him to grapple with his feelings about other people and their choices (and again, to the degree that he can, NHS is just…low on the list).
Maybe he’ll recover enough over time that he can actually think about NHS and go “what the fuck, how could you do that to me” but I think that day is very far off and will require a mental recategorization of NHS from “my best friend’s failflop little brother who I have kindly helped to prop up for years out of affection and resignation” to “person with perceptible agency who can actually make choices and accomplish things and someone for whom there is any point at all in holding him accountable for his actions”, but I genuinely I don’t think that’s the work currently occupying LXC’s three available functioning brain cells.
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Happy happy holidays 🎁🎉🕎🎄❄☃️
As always, I’d love some more of thee MDZS Identity Porn (with the masks and LWJ getting jealous of all of his husband’s “husbands”) (Or JC traveling back in time?) Thanks!
a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5
Nie Huaisang has spent most of the banquet fluttering back and forth between his brother and Meng Yao, stroking and then soothing Nie Mingjue's anger by turns.
At this point, Lan Wangji can't help but find himself wholly unsympathetic to Nie Mingjue's plight. Meng Yao has his husband's trust and care and whatever friction he'd experienced in the Nie is lacking in the Burial Mounds.
The more formal portion of the night has faded and people are intermingling and drinking and spread throughout the Jin gardens and main hall.
Wen Qing spends the evening drinking and scowling and unsubtly putting as much distance between herself and Jiang Wanyin as possible.
Lan Wangji had gotten so caught up talking with his brother and other Lan, now that it's socially permissible to do so, that it takes him a while to notice that his husband is missing.
It takes him significantly less time to notice that Nie Huaisang is missing too.
His face drops into a scowl that he's afraid he's learned from Wen Qing. Xichen blinks then his eyebrows push together in concern. "Wangji?"
He forces his face to smooth out. "Apologies, brother. It's nothing."
Xichen raises an eyebrow then leads him away from the others with some murmured excuses that they pretend to believe. “Go on.”
“It’s fine,” he insists, then under his brother’s unwavering gaze swallows down his embarrassment to say, “The Yiling Patriarch and I have a political marriage.”
“Yes,” Xichen agrees in puzzlement before his faces darkens. “If he is behaving dishonorably-”
“He had a life before me, Xichen,” he says. “His personal and political interests are simply not aligned.”
Not completely. He had flustered Wei Wuxian before. He’s never seduced anyone before, but Wei Wuxian seems as if he’d be amenable, if only he can figure out how to do it.
Xichen looks at him carefully before his mouth tips up on the side. “This is displeasing to you. That the Patriarch’s interest in you is not personal.”
He flushes but gives a single nod.
There’s clear amusement in his tone now. “So he is handsome under the mask then?”
“Xichen,” he says, helpless and a warning at once. He’d spoken in generalities all evening, unwilling to reveal any of the particulars about the clan he’s married into, even to his brother. Meng Yao and Wen Qing are correct. Their clan will have to come more fully into the public soon but that’s Wei Wuxian’s decision, not his.
Well, realistically it’s Meng Yao’s, considering it seems as if Wei Wuxian would happily keep[ their clan in the shadows forever.
“Do you promise it’s not terrible?” Xichen continues, the teasing gone and just leaving gentle concern in its place. “You weren’t just saying that so the others wouldn’t worry? The burial mounds is such a horrible place. I hate thinking of you there.”
The burial mounds are beautiful.
It holds their village and their people and lush fields and thriving crops. There’s soft greys and blue skies and every horrible part of it is underneath his husband’s control and he would never, ever let that horror touch the people he’s sworn to protect.
“It’s not what it looks like on the outside,” he says finally. “The Patriarch isn’t either. You’ll understand when you see it.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Xichen says.
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I know everyone here loves a good "A is injured and/or killed and their partner B absolutely loses it and puts the fear of god into everyone around them" as well as unhealthy devotion to the point of love superceding both self preservation and morality. They're classics for a reason. And I think it's fun that in mdzs basically every single one of the examples for either of these have not been romantic (I think lwj would be up for some wei wuxian-motivated murder if you put him in the right situation but the most he ever did in canon was injure some of his elders, and while intense his grief is mostly silent rather than explosive) but familial. All of the big revenge plans and post death/injury deadly freak-outs have been about family. Wei wuxian (and, honestly, Jiang Cheng) for Jiang Yanli. Wen qing and Wei Wuxian (again) for Wen Ning. Jin Guangyao for his mother. And, of course, the whole fucking plot is set in motion by Nie Huaisang going "I don't give a fuck who it sacrifices in the process i will get revenge for my brother's death" for Nie Mingjue.
It really is "unhealthy codependent family dynamics: the novel." I like it.
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