#LXC DEFENSE SQUAD T-SHIRTS WHEN

[perkynurples]

Hi there! I know you were probably joking about the "mxtx calling [Lan Xichen] an airhead" thing and I really appreciate you coming to his defense but I had to nitpick cuz MXTX never actually calls him that. This post (tonyglowheart. tumblr. com/ post/190530594096/), which includes the original Chinese text, tls it more faithfully as "doesn’t necessarily mean he has to have inscrutable intentions or be perceptive to minute details". aka "he wasn't secretly evil or masterminding anything guys"

Oh thank you for bringing this post to my attention! It really does a much better job of explaining MXTX’s words.

It’s interesting to me that she sort of hints at him being good reading LWJ doesn’t mean he’s good at reading other people - as if the fact that he understands his brother’s innermost impulses, doesn’t necessarily mean he can see through JGY. But these are just two completely different things, in my eyes at least - yes, he knows both of them (some might argue) intimately, but there’s a world of difference between knowing your baby brother you grew up with, on a familial level as well as an emotional one, and seeing through the carefully set up mask your master manipulator of a sworn brother has spent years polishing and perfecting.

I just feel like the fact that JGY was able to lie to him for so long isn’t a testament to how blind or stupid LXC was, but to how damn good JGY was at reading him, at picking out precisely which parts of himself to show to him, to make LXC sympathetic. And I also firmly believe JGY knew he had to be bulletproof in LXC’s eyes at least, because, again, the second LXC got wind of a shred of evidence against JGY, he immediately started investigating, even when he was uncomfortable with the whole ordeal, even if he’d rather do anything but.

That’s where his true skill lies, and that’s where they show us how good of a politician, diplomat and Sect Leader he really is, but because we don’t see him dramatically standing against the status quo like his brother, because we don’t see him brandishing Shuoyue to defend his beliefs (until, of course, it makes its very last appearance, ouch), because he’s not a man of grand declarations or dramatic larger-than-life gestures, he’s too easily dismissed as having been foolish enough to go along with JGY’s act this entire time (as to how much of it was an act and how much of it had to be true for it to work, well, I’d have to write another damn meta and we’re not here to talk about that rn). And I’m having none of it.

tl;dr thank you again for bringing this much clearer translation to my attention, that does make me feel a lot better re: MXTX and her opinions of her own characters, and you can always count on me to defend LXC at any given point in time.