#& 2. honestly from a cultural perspective here? ‘whatever NHS has going on’ is WAY closer to Normal Brother Behavior or at least closer to | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

amorremanet · 1 year ago

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For Fandom confession ask game: I think jiang cheng loved Wei wuxian in a more than brotherly or platonic way but didn't have the emotional knowledge to recognize it and that's why it hurt him so bad when Wei wuxian defected from the jiang sect and later went off lan wangji because Wei wuxian was supposed to be his person and he left him behind

Y E A H

YEAH

And this isn't even me being amatonormative about it, because it doesn't even have to be romantic or sexual to be an intensity that is beyond what is typical of siblings or best friends or sworn confidantes. I posted once about how Jiang Cheng embodies Jo March's reaction to John Brooke asking to court Meg in Little Women:

“Of course not. It would be idiotic! I knew there was mischief brewing. I felt it, and now it’s worse than I imagined. I just wish I could marry Meg myself, and keep her safe in the family.“

IF ONLY HE COULD MARRY WEI WUXIAN HIMSELF AND KEEP HIM SAFE IN THE FAMILY!!

Of course, if you are interpreting this in a romantic/sexual context, there is SO MUCH to unpack there, especially re: his resentment towards Wangji, and it is outrageous to me that it's not one of the top Jiang Cheng ships.

#i just want to add two things about this: 1. mxtx FUCKING KNEW she made them Like This; the gossiping randos in ch 1 use a term for jc&wwx’s #relationship that is apparently predominantly associated with full romo m/f childhood sweethearts than with whatever these two are supposed #to be doing (there is a post somewhere analyzing this & saying that some ppl in cn fandom were genuinely confused abt jc being wwx’s romo ex #& 2. honestly from a cultural perspective here? ‘whatever NHS has going on’ is WAY closer to Normal Brother Behavior or at least closer to #Normal Family Behavior. my reasoning goes back to wen ruohan murdering daddy nie. HEAR ME OUT: filial vengeance is A Big Deal in certain #sources. not like universally A Big Deal but it’s A Big Deal in ways that (to me personally; may be wrong) mesh really well with nmj’s whole #Thing (read: raging justice-boner) (blah blah blah fine line btwn justice & vengeance). ANYWAY: the sunshot campaign is a rebellion against #a tyrannical weirdo yes. but let’s recall that nmj’s big personal motivation is ‘wen ruohan killed my father & MUST DIE BY *MY* HAND.’#the sunshot campaign is also partially nmj giving his & nhs’s father a big offering of filial vengeance that’s more fucked up than a college #freshman in new orleans for mardi gras………except Not Fucking Really bc meng yao swoops in at the last minute & ACTUALLY kills wen ruohan. oop #(i have a whole bunch of other Feelings on that as pertains to nieyao/3zun but that’s not the point. the point is nmj is being perma-edged #abt his filial piety vengeance-boner which can fundamentally never be satisfied AND he has to feel Grateful to the guy who stole it from him #bc if a-yao HADN’T stolen it from him then nmj would have died on his knees in nightless sky. tbh the golden core transfer parallels are A+)#now nmj is a parentified sibling to nhs in a lot of ways. we can litigate how well he fills the role until the cows come home; he’s still #the closest thing nhs has to a father after nie daddy dies. & then jgy—the san-ge who also stole nmj’s kill & made it so nie daddy’s spirit #would never be Properly Avenged by his sons—goes & kills nmj. not gonna litigate the morality of that; it’s irrelevant. nhs has already had #to live with knowing that: a. his father’s soul will never be properly avenged; & b. he did exactly jackshit to help with that bc he spent #the sunshot campaign hiding away in gusu. now nmj’s spirit needs vengeance & nhs is LITERALLY the only person alive who can give him the #Exact Correct Flavor of Vengeance/Justice (which is probably a very pressing issue since nmj should’ve had tranquilization rites but became #a powerful fierce corpse regardless). TL;DR: nhs’s fraternal devotion while unhinged in its own way is not actually THAT far outside the #bounds of Normal Family Behavior if you look at the larger context. it takes him 5ever & getting mxy to revive wwx bc nhs knows his own #limits & knows that wwx can pull a lot of shit that he for various reasons cannot. but that only makes nhs patient not like THAT unhinged.#tbh the way that he drags lxc into things at the last second is (to me) The Most Unhinged thing he does. bc based on the empathy sesh with #nmj’s head? he doesn’t seem to hold lxc responsible for anything (even tho lxc’s action/lack thereof & trust/lack thereof were huge fucking #factors in why everything fell apart how it did with jgy killing nmj)—but nhs while nominally avenging nmj drags lxc into things & it may or #may not be about punishing lxc so much as making sure that jgy died in the most pain that nhs could imagine (btwn mutilating meng shi’s body #& having lxc be The Fucking One to deliver the stab that actually kills jgy? A+ well done you’ve succeeded in causing Maximim Pain huaisang)#& well that’s unhinged in his pursuit of vengeance for HIS OWN sense of betrayal more than for nmj. bc nhs overlooked the ‘kill stole for my #da-ge’s filial piety vengeance boner’ thing & LOVED jgy. welcomed jgy into his life as a new gege (probs at least a little bc jgy saved nmj)#but then san-ge betrayed that forgiveness & that love by killing da-ge so nhs wants him to feel Maximum Betrayed at the moment of his death

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