#also I'm not sure I'd call it a notp exactly? like obviously I don't see it but there are versions of it I can kind of enjoy

[thatswhatsushesaid]

the ask for jiang cheng or xue yang

ok this one is (I think) for the other character meme, and I'm gonna go with xue yang rather than jiang cheng:

a song that reminds me of them: I don't have any xy-exclusive songs, but I do always envision "sharks" by imagine dragons as being an observation from xy to jgy during their shared villainous friends era in jinlintai, with the majority of the lyrics being from xy's POV except for the bridge, which is all jgy.

what they smell like: uhhh. 😬 have you ever been to an abattoir

an otp/a notp: I enjoy xuexiao as the toxic and fucked up hot mess that it is, but I would not go so far as to call it an OTP, esp since xxc and sl exude such intense soulmate energy. I also enjoy, theoretically, the idea of xy having an utterly unrequited crush on jgy which he demonstrates through bullying him with tongue tea. and also cutting out the tongues of people who call jgy the son of a prostitute. you know, grade school hijinks.

favourite platonic/familial relationship: I know this is an ongoing pattern but since I mostly enjoy xy as a very naughty boy doing naughty demonic cultivation crimes while a 'guest disciple' of the lanling jin, I vibe most with his platonic relationship with jgy. I think my favourite moment between them happens in one of nmj's empathy flashbacks where nmj sees jgy and xy standing side by side chatting and seeming to enjoy each other's company, and then that 'code switch' moment that happens when jgy goes from interacting with xy to nmj. imo it's a neat way of acknowledging in the text that xy and jgy's shared experience of poverty in childhood, while obviously not identical, gives them a way of relating to each other that no one else in the text can. idk I just think they're neat.

a headcanon that is popular in the fandom that I disagree with: I'm not sure if this is a popular headcanon or not, exactly, or just an interpretation of the text that I disagree with, but I personally don't think jgy intended to have xy killed when he had him beaten badly and then abandoned on the side of the road 🤷‍♀️ I find jgy's propensity towards inconvenient sentimentality (e.g. sisi) an extremely interesting aspect of his character, and so I do think that he viewed the beating + turning xy loose on the side of the road as an acceptable compromise (internally, that is) to either letting him escape without issue, and executing him. and I think xy probably recognized the gesture for what it was.

the position they sleep in: sprawl, with bones and sharp pointies

a crossover AU I'd love to see them in: I would love to see him as one of xie'er's ne'er-do-well tag-alongs in the word of honour live action drama, that would be absolutely terrifying. and hilarious.

my favourite outfit they've ever worn: I mean he's basically just got the one look in the drama, but I love the idea of him slummin' it around lanling city in his lanling jin sect robes looking like a naughty catholic school teen smoking a cigarette behind the gymnasium.

[xiyao-feels]

Nie//yao (MDZS)

So NMJ/JGY is actually getting two versions, because my read on them is wildly different for MDZS vs CQL.

In MDZS I...don't ship it? I mean, there just doesn't seem to be to be anything there at all of a romantic or sexual nature. It's not that they don't care about each other, they clearly do, but it's in a way that is...NMJ as substitute father, JGY as substitute brother, and heavily, heavily inflected by their (current and then former) relationship as superior and subordinate.

Putting this behind a cut because a) it's me explaining at breath length with quotes why I don't think they have a romantic or sexual relationship and I don't want people to have to see that unless they want and b) accordingly it is REALLY LONG and I also don't want to clutter people's dashes, so.

Actually backing up a step, I don't see MDZS NMJ as being attracted to anyone, that's not really specific to JGY. I tend to read him as aspec, tbh. So theoretically he could have romantic feelings about JGY without being attracted to him—I think he may have some quasi-romantic feelings for LXC, though I don't think he conceptualizes it that way—but... honestly, it's not really clear to me that he even likes JGY as a person.

I'm not saying he doesn't like JGY! He clearly does, at least before MY tricks him and flees. But it doesn't seem to have anything to do with MY's personality, as opposed to like—MY being really competent and conducting himself well.

Some quotes about what exactly NMJ values about JGY:

'Nie MingJue interrupted him, “I promoted you not because I wanted you to give back anything out of gratitude. I simply thought that you should stay in this position, since you are capable enough and your conduct is to my liking. If you really want to pay me back, just kill a few more of those Wen-dogs on the battlefield!”'

'After [Meng Yao] left [for Langya], Nie MingJue switched to another deputy. Wei WuXian, however, felt that the new one was always a few beats slower. Meng Yao was an unusually clever talent. He could understand what wasn’t said, and perform to the best with the simplest orders. He was efficient and never slacked. Anyone used to him wouldn’t be able to refrain from comparing him with others.'

'Nie MingJue was never close to people. He rarely opened up to anyone. Though he finally managed to obtain a competent, trustworthy subordinate, whose character and capabilities he approved, he found that the subordinate’s true colors were nothing like what he had thought they were. It was only natural that his reaction was so extreme.'

'Wei WuXian had once found it strange as well. Ever since Meng Yao betrayed the QingheNie Sect, the relationship between Nie MingJue and him hadn’t been the same as before. Then why did they later become sworn brothers? From his observations, aside from how Lan XiChen brought it up, having always hoped that the two would reconcile, the most important factor was probably the gratitude of saving his life and writing the letters. To be precise, in his past battles, he had more-or-less depended on the information that Meng Yao sent over through Lan XiChen. He still thought that Jin GuangYao was a talented person whom one would rarely come upon, and intended on leading him back onto the right path. However, Jin GuangYao wasn’t his subordinate anymore. Only after they became sworn brothers would he have the status and the position to urge Jin GuangYao, like how he disciplined his younger brother, Nie HuaiSang.'

Jin GuangYao spoke with dejection, “But, Brother, didn’t you hear what he said in the oath? Every sentence meant something more. ‘Face a thousand accusing fingers, be torn from limb to limb’—this was clearly a warning for me. I… I’ve never heard of such an oath before.”

Lan XiChen replied in a gentle voice, “He said ‘if one were to think otherwise’. Do you think otherwise? If not, then why should you worry over it so much?"

Jin GuangYao, “I don’t, but Brother has already decided that I do, so what can I do?”

Lan XiChen, “He has always cherished your talent, hoping that you would choose the right path.”

You might notice a recurring theme here: there's a lot of focus JGY's competence and conduct. But anything about who JGY is as a person? Not so much.

They clearly had a good superior/subordinate relationship going on, albeit one in which NMJ was missing a lot of context (see just behave well and show people up, plus the you're missing a solid foundation thing). But it does seem to be basically professional. WWX describes them as conversing "peaceably, even impressively" in contrast to "his future self, always being scolded by Nie MingJue" and "those jokes of how 'LianFang-Zun fled whenever he heard that ChiFeng-Zun arrived,'" and.... that's kind of it. The closest we get to them as friends is them talking together with LXC after NMJ tells MY he will give him a letter of recommendation and send him to his father; as WWX describes it, "The three chatted back and forth, at times serious, yet at times light. The conversation was much more relaxed than when they had been in the living room. Listening to their chatter, Wei WuXian often wanted to get a word in as well, yet he was unable to do so."

That's definitely not nothing! But it's also the most we ever get, only shows up the once, and is explicitly contrasted with their conversation from earlier. Moreover, I'm pretty sure LXC's presence is a necessary part of things; NMJ tends to respond differently to LXC than to other people (even just earlier in this chapter, we're told that while "Nie MingJue had never been one for humour," "in front of Lan XiChen his expression eased"), and WWX explicitly notes LXC's conversation skills in the context of this conversation: "At this point in time, their relationship really isn't bad. Zewu-Jun is actually quite good at holding conversations, so why is Lan Zhan so bad at it?"

In addition, I'd say that looking at the early part of that conversation is quite telling; while LXC and MY are sitting together as equals, MY stand up at once the moment NMJ interrupts, and doesn't sit even after NMJ tells him to do so (I think he probably does take a seat at some point, but the narrative doesn't actually tell us when). Moreover, MY seems to be worried that NMJ will be offended by a possible lack of gratitude on MY's part ("Sect Leader Nie, if you heard everything, then you should've also heard me say that..."), and the only objection he expresses to leaving is precisely that he owes NMJ a debt of gratitude, not anything to do with, like, missing him. To me all the evidence suggests that while they had a close relationship, it was not a /personal/ relationship, but fundamentally one of superior and subordinate.

(For a close read of the scene where NMJ, LXC and MY are talking together, I highly recommend @confusion-and-more's post here)

Moving on, let's look at after JGY becomes JGY. They don't seem to particularly spend time together with each other, certainly not for the sake of it. There's a brief moment at the Flower Banquet where NMJ asks JGY why he's wasting his time with XY (who has not at this point in time committed his crime, he just has a reputation), but after JGY makes his excuse and scurries away, NMJ turns away and doesn't seem to seek him out or even pay him any particular attention for the rest of the scene; he only shows up once more, and that's following WWX. (And although JGY-as-replacement-NHS would be a post all on its own, I do think it's interesting to note that the exchange about XY is immediately followed by LXC and LWJ coming over, described in a way that highlights both their impressiveness and their status at brothers—their Twin Jade-ness, one might say.) During the guqin scene, NMJ only speaks once, and it's to address LXC—to protest the inappropriateness of LXC leaking exclusive Lan techniques. When JGY shows up to play the guqin for him the first time, NMJ asks JGY "what did you come here for," which suggests that NMJ is not generally expecting JGY to come by without a specific, concrete reason. The closest they ever seem to get after JGY becomes JGY is during these guqin-playing sessions, and as WWX describes it, "when playing the guqin, the way that the two conversed and got along even had a hint of the peace they had before they fell out"—which is certainly better than there being no peace at all, but which I think suggests there's still at least some tension, given that it's only a "hint."

Now, NMJ certainly cares about JGY, both in the sense of desiring his well-being, at first, and absolutely in the sense of being emotionally invested in him—even after his death, as a fierce corpse his only desire is to kill Jin Guangyao. But while they had a close superior-subordinate relationship—certainly NMJ seems to have felt close to MY—at no point was it a close personal relationship, and I don't think that NMJ even liked JGY (or MY, I'm using the name expansively) as a person, let alone was in love with him.

But mostly so far I've been focusing in NMJ's feelings. What about JGY? Is /he/ in love with NMJ?

Once again, I just don't read him that way. This isn't to say he didn't care for NMJ—he absolutely did! He goes to quite significant lengths to save his life from WRH in the Sun Palace, including quite a lot of risk to MY himself—I analyze that in a lot more depth in the first part of my post here, if you're interested, though I will also note now that he specifically sent for LXC to help NMJ. (You'll have to scroll down some; I'm responding to someone else's post.) Afterwards, he kneels to NMJ and apologizes, I think sincerely, for hurting him and for invoking his pain about his father's death. He certainly conceives of himself as owing a debt of gratitude to NMJ for recognizing him, and he's so overcome when NMJ offers to send him to his father with a letter of recommendation, saying that he didn't promote MY so that MY would owe him, that he quite remarkably can't even find words. NMJ meant a lot to him, and so did NMJ's not defining him in terms of his birth—until he did, of course, at the stairs kick incident. But as far as I can tell, there's nothing to suggest he has /romantic feelings/ for NMJ, and frankly—how can I put this—it does not at all surprise me that JGY isn't in love with someone with a violent temper who is noted at least twice to react to people explaining themselves when he is angry with even more anger, and that's even without the thing where he nearly killed JGY on multiple occasions and called him the son of a prostitute.

No, I think JGY's emotional journey with NMJ goes through three stages: first, he's deeply grateful to him and respects him a great deal, although he's also aware of NMJ's lack of awareness of certain social realities (see: the teacup scene, NMJ yelling at the other Nie cultivators about their treatment of MY and telling MY not to worry as long as his conduct is upright); second, after Sun Palace, still gratitude and respect but also a mounting frustration with his lack of awareness of the implications of JGY's social position and his hypocrisy re: acceptable violence; finally, after the stairs kick when NMJ kicks him down the stairs, almost kills him, and tells him what else can be expected from the son of a prostitute, he is completely done with NMJ, but is still very much scared of him. The gratitude, I've discussed; the frustration, I think is fairly obvious in the speech he gives back to NMJ at the stairs. But I think the fear is often undervalued, so I'm going to pull a bunch of quotes again:

Meng Yao shrunk immediately after his previous outburst. Watching Baxia slash toward him, he sprinted off at once, scared lifeless. Of the two, one striked with madness and the other fled with madness. Both staggered, still soaked in blood. In such amusing circumstances, as Wei WuXian chopped at the future Chief Cultivator, in his heart he split his sides laughing. He thought that if not for how Nie MingJue was under heavy injuries and lacked spiritual power, Meng Yao would probably have been dead already.

Baxia’s strikes were so menacing that Shuoyue had to unsheath. Lan XiChen stopped him, half to support his figure and half to block his attacks, “MingJue-xiong, calm down! Why bother?”

Nie MingJue, “Why don’t you ask what he did?!”

Lan XiChen turned around to look at Meng Yao, his face was full of terror. He stammered as if he didn’t dare speak.

Nie MingJue remained silent, while Baxia and Shuoyue continued. Meng Yao took a glimpse at the glares from the clashes of the saber and the sword, his gaze full of fear. After a while, however, he still took a step forward. He kneeled to Nie MingJue.

A moment later, Nie MingJue still raised his saber. Lan XiChen, “MingJue-xiong!”

Meng Yao shut his eyes. Lan XiChen also tightened his grip on Shuoyue, “Please excuse…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the silver light of the blade slashed down violently, onto a boulder on the side.

Meng Yao flinched from the thunder of the boulder splitting apart. Looking over, he saw that it had been sliced into two halves, from the top to the bottom.

Jin GuangYao nodded. Xue Yang had been infamous ever since he was young. Wei WuXian clearly felt Nie MingJue’s brows knit even tighter. He spoke, “Why are you wasting your time with such a person?”

Jin GuangYao, “The LanlingJin Sect recruited him.”

He didn’t dare to protest any further. Excuse being that he needed to care for the guests, he scurried to the other side.

[part of his speech to NMJ at the stairs] You think that I should be afraid of nothing? Well I'm afraid of everything, even other people!

Within the temple, three people called Nie MingJue’s corpse ‘Brother’ but the three tones were drastically different. Jin GuangYao’s face was full of a drowning fear. His entire body began to shiver. No matter dead or alive, the person Jin GuangYao was most scared of was none but this sworn brother of his whose temper tolerated no evil. As his body shivered, his hands shivered as well, and the bloody guqin string he clutched tightly in his hand also began to shiver.

Clenching his teeth, Jin GuangYao struck a few acupoints of his arm. Amidst the dizziness that came from a loss of blood, he suddenly saw Nie MingJue walk a step towards him, his eyes locked on him. He was immediately half-dead with fear.

Collapsed beside Lan XiChen, Jin GuangYao saw this scene as well. Whether because the bleeding and the pain intensified at his arm and stomach or from some other reason, the glisten of tears could be seen in his eyes. But before he had a chance to catch his breath or lick his wounds, Nie MingJue turned around after he pulled his fist back and stared hungrily in his direction.

The harsh, stern expression on his rigid face held a sense of judgement that was no different from before he died. Even his tears had been scared away as Jin GuangYao turned to Lan XiChen for help, his voice trembling, “Brother…”

I think the stuff with, you know, handling NMJ's fierce corpse and hanging onto his head is often viewed as evidence of JGY's continued emotional investment in NMJ, but... I don't really think so? First of all, NMJ's fierce corpse is completely obsessed with killing JGY. I'll spare you another round of quotes on that because this is already ridiculously long and because it's not at all subtle—it's all over the temple chapters, take a look! And second of all—well, there's ways of getting information from a corpse. In this case, NMJ's resentful energy is so strong that without the protection of his body, papernan WWX is actually sucked into NMJ's memories against his will! Sure, maybe no one would risk it, and maybe no one who risked it would survive, but especially given that NMJ's fierce corpse is completely obsessed with killing JGY, that's a heck of a risk to take. And look at the description of the protections around NMJ's head:

Suddenly, Wei WuXian noticed that one of the shelves were blocked by a curtain. The curtain was covered in sinister, blood-red runes. It was a talisman of forbiddance, one of extreme power.

Jin GuangYao walked over and lifted the curtain.

For a split second, Wei WuXian thought that he had been exposed. After the faint firelight made its way through the curtain, he found that he was enveloped in a shadow. A circular object just happened to be in front of him.

Jin GuangYao stood still, as though he was staring into the eyes of whatever was inside this shelf.

After a moment, he spoke, “Were you the one looking at me?"

Of course, there couldn’t be any response. He was silent for a while, then let down the curtain.

Wei WuXian quietly attached himself to the object. Cold and hard, it seemed to be a helmet. He then turned to the front. As he had expected, he saw a pallid face. The one who sealed the head wanted it to see nothing, hear nothing, speak nothing, and so incantations had been crowded onto the waxen skin. The eyes, the ears, and the mouth were all sealed tightly shut.

There's containment, it's suppressed to all hell and back, and JGY quite justifiably expects it to be murderously obsessed with him, but to me it doesn't suggest a reciprocal obsession—just more fear.

I'll also note that as a strategy for containing the information about his own involvement it's a very successful operation! It failed in the end /eventually/, but the failure needed:

someone who could successfully break into his private treasure room and escape without being caught

who could also perform Empathy or a similar tecnnique on NMJ's head and survive it

who could successfully recreate from memory the altered Empathy song

whom LXC would be willing to listen to

That's a heck of a tall order!

As to being done with NMJ after the stairs, well, listen to what he says to LXC:

Jin GuangYao spoke with dejection, “But, Brother, didn’t you hear what he said in the oath? Every sentence meant something more. ‘Face a thousand accusing fingers, be torn from limb to limb’—this was clearly a warning for me. I… I’ve never heard of such an oath before.”

[...]

Jin GuangYao, “It’s not that I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong, but that sometimes I really can’t help. Nowadays, I have it bad no matter which side I’m on. I have to ensure that I’m on everyone’s good sides. I wouldn’t care if it were someone else, but have I mistreated our eldest brother in any way? Brother, you heard as well. What did he call me?”

[...]

Jin GuangYao was almost sobbing, “If he could say such a thing when he was angry, then just how does he think of me on a daily basis? Is it that because I couldn’t choose my background, because my mother couldn’t choose her fate, I’ll have to be humiliated by others throughout my whole life? If so, then how is Brother different from the people who look down on me? No matter what I do, in the end, just a sentence and I’m ‘the son of a prostitute’.”

And then of course there's what he says to LXC, in his speech to him at the end: "You, on the other hand, ZeWu-Jun, Sect Leader Lan, are as intolerant of me as Nie MingJue—you refuse to spare me even a single breath of life!"

So—wow, this got very long—I don't ship them, and although I think they have very much mattered emotionally to each other, I don't really see them as ever having been in love with or attracted to each other.

A couple of end notes:

In MDZS, NMJ isn't the first (non-MS) person who recognizes MY's worth, although he is the first person to promote him; by the time NMJ promotes MY MY has already met, rescued, and exchanged intimate confidences with LXC, who respects him greatly and thinks he is highly talented (see again the conversation in Hejian which NMJ overhears/eavedrops on).

I've seen people talk about them not understanding each other, but while NMJ certainly doesn't understand JGY, it's not at all obvious that the reverse is true; he generally seems to understand him pretty well. I think he has two surprises overall: first, that he wasn't expecting NMJ to say he didn't promote MY so MY would owe him, and volunteer to send him to his father with a letter of recommendation—and second, he wasn't expecting NMJ, who for all his flaws did seem to ignore JGY's background in good ways as well as bad, to call him the son of a prostitute.

I definitely don't read the coffin at the end as romantic. Or I mean, uh, there's the romance of an obsessive stalker-murderer finally getting his victim, and that's not nothing (unironically; look, I'm a Hannibal fan), but I don't think it's usually what people mean. This is a shitty end for JGY, part of how thoroughly he loses and is destroyed. I think to some extent it might be that he doesn't want LXC to be the one who killed him, and to some extent it's an act of defiance—now that he has nothing to lose, not even his life, he's going to go out fighting. I would expand on this but this post is ridiculously long and I have way too many quotes, maybe I'll do it in a separate post later on—but if you look at the description of it in the text, plus the subsequent description of it in the coffin...yeah. JGY didn't want to die, he didn't want to be engaged in a mutually destructive thing with NMJ; he wanted to leave NMJ behind in the past, and move on. It's not, for him any kind of fulfillment, is my read.

All quotes are taken from the Exiled Rebels translation: ch 48-50 for everything about NMJ and JGY's past relationship, ch. 47 for the description of JGY's containment measures for NMJ's head, and ch. 106-108 for the quotes about JGY's fear of NMJ's fierce corpse. The description of JGY going into the coffin is at the end of 108 if you want to have a look, and there's more in 109 and 110 about the difficulty of sealing NMJ's fierce corpse/its power and violence.

[the-irken-pony]

Headcannons thingy!! Susie and Ellie Rose perhaps<3?

Susie:

Sexuality headcanon: Gray-aroace lesbian

OTP: Noelle, obviously

BroTP: Kris and Lancer, but mostly Kris I think

NoTP: Berdly mostly

First headcanon that pops into my head: Very physically affectionate once she gets to know someone, and a total sucker for chin scritches

One way in which I relate to this character: Chomp chomp

Thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: Don't know that I'd call this second hand embarrassment, but the scene where she makes fun of Berdly always kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Given how she acted prior to that moment (especially in chapter 2) it felt more targeted and personal than Susie's usual "rudeness". At the same time though, I recognize Berdly had it coming since they knew each other for a while prior so I don't know that the criticism is justified.

Cinnamon roll or problematic fav: Sinnamon roll

Ellie:

Sexuality headcanon: Bi and also polyamorous

OTP: Kind of in a weird boat with her. I ship her with Henry and Charles, but only if it's poly triple threat. And also I honestly have no preference between romantic vs platonic triple threat.

BroTP: Triple Threat as I mentioned above, and I'm sure you're well aware of how I feel about Ellie and Reginald as a duo (god these two... these two)

NoTP: Kinda a controversial pick but RHM? I don't really have a good reason for this one so no hate toward anyone who likes this ship, but I don't see it working out between them.

First headcanon that pops into my head: She's not connected to the CCC in any official manner, but she does have a friend who works there; she mentions having "contacts" in Capital Gainz so that's where that idea comes from (tfw you accidentally make a whole oc and didn't realize it until like two days ago)

One way in which I relate to this character: Awkward speech patterns (she tends to speak somewhat slowly and her tone of voice doesn't change much)

Thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character: The mispronunciation of Toppat is a personal pet peeve of mine sorry

Cinnamon roll or problematic fav: It's hard to say she's exactly either tbh? Like she's not exactly controversial but she's not innocent either.

[alderjayne]

isaac? :3c

HIM HIMHIM

Sexuality Headcanon: you see he's already canonly gay and canonly demiace so there's only so much to hc, saving how for he fits on the ace spectrum, which kai mentioned a while ago to someone was fine to mess with a tad bcause trying to identify where exactly on the aspec you fall is finicky and difficult to pinpoint anyways. ACTUALLY now that I think about it I do pretty often consider him... probably demi-aro as well, but also simply more likely to have romantic attraction to someone than sexual once they meet the qualifications for either. that's just the vibe in my head tho this is not upset by seeing different portrayals about it at all. and also if he's at a point where/if he manages to like multiple people. poly. obtaining this however assumes that he not only has the emotional comprehension, initiative, and articulation to establish a relationship with one person, but in fact 2+ persons. he can't do that. probably they'd have to come to this conclusion and propose it first.

Gender Headcanon: that depends on my mood lol. most often either cis or mlm nb, typically either agender or a little bit genderfluid about it perhaps or both.

A ship I have with said character: OTPs isward and whatever the ship name is for drew's there too. with one of the jocks could be interesting potentially I think I'd like to see that sometime.

A BROTP I have with said character: Cody called him a little knife man.

A NOTP I have with said character: honestly nevin and Chris w him. not in the sense that I dislike content of them together or it existing. They're both dynamics that appeal to me! but I tried a few times and simply could never make myself care. Neither ship invokes any particular feelings or keep my attention, so I frankly just don't think about it much. (wasn't always the case, but currently this happens to be true for me and Nevin-or-Chris + everyone else that isn't each other, so they can go candoodle in peace ig.) also Felix or the evil jocks + Isaac. I've seen a little bit of it and I simply don't have any feelings about the concept, probably even less so than the above since while they're fun to watch cause problems, they exist solely to cause problems and give Cody jock lore so I'm not actual attached of them as people, as opposed to Nevin and Chris who obviously we're all already fond of as individual characters. as for actual NOTP in terms of NOTP. gross age dynamics, and the girls, I guess? The obvious? (one of those is worse than the other, but nonetheless)

A random headcanon: if I remember right it's outright canon he doesn't tell his parents jack because he doesn't want to deal with the trouble of it, but I think about this a lot so putting it here anyways?? and I'm definitely projecting at him about something that I don't even do anymore, (albeit I think everyone has to do this to some extent, ESPECIALLY in terms of you what you mention to your parents when you're a teenager, because the truth is that they genuinely don't need to know all about everything always. He's just bad about it worse.) but he has a habit of. simply not mentioning things that happen if he decides that it being mentioned won't directly a trigger an immediately drastic tangible improvement, and occasionally even when it would. hes only sometimes right that it won't. Telling his parents he got thrown into a bookcase isn't going to unconcussion him, so while there's not going to be negative consequences from telling them, it sure would be slightly inconvenient for him to explain and upsetting for them to find out about and then might try to do something about, and potentially lead to the magicky stuff being mentioned to them, which he hasn't told them about because.... uh. well, not that they would hurt him, but it could complicate things? and he wouldn't gain anything from them knowing, so it would be the same level of positive impact regardless, except that he wouldn't have to hide it which doesn't matter that much, not that he's... hiding it, exactly, but net no change vs the potential for it to be slightly worse or more annoying or inconvenient or take energy or be awkward or upsetting somehow without it curing cancer or anything, so yes he is actually. that said by now it'd kind of have to be a habit because I don't think he thinks enough in general to consciously be making that decision this much. negative points in thinking thoughts and negative points in communication. At this point I feel like it would take a BIG BIG payoff to get to him be open about Literally Anything, and regardless of whether he's right about the amount knowing about things will or won't fix, EMOTIONALLY he sure is a lot worse off for it. tbh I'm not even sure if this is technically even headcanon because it's kind of just an apsect of canon I latched onto really hard and had thoughts about. Unrelated but when he was younger (middle school + first grade probably) he bit people. He just did. If he was in a situation where biting someone would help him enough he would do it again. also unrelated again but I think he gets kind of weak about being kissed on the neck.

General Opinion over said character: I THINK ABOUT HIM A LOT AND EVERY TIME SOMEONE MAKES CONTENT ABOUT HIM I GET SO HAPPY ABOUT IT.